The ACP is active in ensuring that Child and Adolescent Mental Health provision is fit for purpose and regularly responds to policy and guideline consultations.
The ACP and ACP registered child psychotherapists, complete or contribute to a number of policy submissions each year on a range of issues relating to the mental health of babies, children, young people and their parents. As an organisation, we have also responded to inquiries looking at the NHS workforce and the role of specialists such as ACP registered child and adolescent psychotherapists.
POLICY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2017
In January 2017, the ACP completed a response to the Health Committee's inquiry on children and young people's mental health and the role of education. The Green Paper which is due out soon has responded to some of these findings. You can read read the submission here
POLICY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2016
Review of Residential Care
Response to the call for Written Evidence for Sir Martin Narey's Review of Residential Care. You can read the evidence submitted here.
NICE Guidelines
Contribution to the draft scope for the NICE guideline on Attention deficity hyperactivity disorder. Thanks to Sarah Peter for contributing comments on behalf of the ACP. You can read the submission here
Long term sustainability of the NHS
The ACP completed a response to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Long term Sustainability of the NHS: How can we ensure a sustainable future for the NHS? The ACP raised the important issue of valuing and maintaining the role of specialists in the workforce: The economic and societal costs of individuals being unable to access effective, timely treatment are huge. This is especially the case for mental health, which currently receives a fraction of health funding overall. It is hard to put an exact figure on what resources will be required going forward, but we would emphasise the need to invest in building services so that there is a provision for the right treatment to be available at the right time, this means having specialists as well as generic workers available to provide a choice of quality and evidenced treatments (as highlighted in the MH taskforce report, Future in Mind). This will save significant costs in the long run. You can read the full submission here.
Education Committee Primary Assessment Inquiry
The response to the inquiry’s consultation concentrated on our members’ concerns about how the current assessment in English primary schools is affecting young children’s development emotionally and psychologically. You can read the full submission here
POLICY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2015
NICE Guidelines
Response to a consultation for NICE's draft guideline on Children's attachment. A small working group of ACP members contributed to the submission - thanks to Alison Roy, Angela Evans, Jenifer Wakelyn and Louise Phillips. The full guideline was published in November 2015. Read our submission here
Response to a draft scope for a new NICE guideline on the developmental follow up of pre-term babies. Many thanks to Maggie Cohen who submitted a response on behalf of the ACP. The consultation on the draft guideline is scheduled for February 2017. You can read our submission to the draft scope here. The final scope and equality impact assessment has now been published for this guideline along with all the stakeholder comments that were received during the consultation and NICE's response to these comments.
The ACP has been involved since the start of the year with the latest NICE guidance on Eating Disorders. Thanks to Helena Cowen who attended a scoping workshop in January on the draft scope for Eating Disorders (update) and to Cathy Troupp for responding to the draft scope for which a consultation ran from February to March. The anticipated publication date for the updated guidance is April 2017. You can read our submission to the draft scope here.
POLICY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2014
The ACP has submitted a response to two NICE consultations in the second half of this year: End of life care for infants, children and young people in November and Depression in children and young people (update) in December. Many thanks to Tony Lee and Tess Bailey-Sayer for their contribution to the former and Rajni Sharma to the latter consultation.
You can read our submission to the Depression in children and young people (update) here.
*NEW: Read the updated guidelines published in March 2015 for Depression in children and young people here
Read our submission to the End of life care for infants, children and young people here.
POLICY SUBMISSIONS FOR 2013
In May 2013: NICE Depression in children and young people quality standard consultation. The ACP submitted its response to this consultation which ran from 3 April to 1 May 2013.
Read the draft quality standard for depression in children and young people. Read the NICE Depression ACP response to the consultation.
Thanks to Margaret Rustin, Nick Midgley and Simon Cregeen for their efforts in compiling the response on behalf of the ACP.
In April 2013: NICE's health and wellbeing of looked after children and young people quality standard was published on its website. The quality standard defines best practice for the health and wellbeing of looked-after children and young people and describes high-priority areas for quality improvement in a defined care or service area.
Read the quality standard here.
In January 2013: NICE published a summary of its clinical guidelines on psychosis and schizophrenia in children and young people. It links to the published guidance and key documents.
Read the summary here on the NICE website.
View the full policy archive here