The mother of a Fermanagh teenager who was referred for an emergency appointment with mental health services in the Western Trust has revealed it took nine months before he was seen. 

Sarah (not her real name) explained her son was suicidal and when he spoke to her they booked an appointment with their GP in January of this year and he was referred for an emergency appointment following this.

But it was not until this month that an appointment became available, and that was only due to a cancellation. And Sarah does not know how long they would have had to wait if there had not been a cancellation.

"[He] only spoke to us before Christmas [of last year] and we got an appointment with the GP as soon as we could.

"We had a teenager at that stage (suicidal) and admitting that and it took nine months to get a cancellation appointment, not even for an emergency," said Sarah who added that there was no contact from the Trust until the phone call informing them of the available appointment and the only help they were given were a list of phone numbers to ring.

"You are completely left, you are just abandoned. Only that I have been through it as an adult and have some skills I don’t know how anybody completely new to any of this would have coped.

"It has not been easy, it's affecting a lot of things in life."

Sarah's son has seen a counsellor through the education system but when she asked the GP how long it would be before she got an appointment through the health service they were unable to tell her.

But a phone call finally came at the start of the month and the first appointment took place last week.

Sarah is critical of the process as she believes it is just "paper pushing and pen-pushing".

"We've had an initial appointment. We are at the information-gathering stage.

"The professional needs to go back to their team and discuss it and see what happens next. You get an appointment and you don’t even know if anything is going to happen after the end of the first appointment."

And she does not think this is good for her son as it increases worry and adds pressure.

"What is going through their heads? You have no idea of what is going on.

"You go to the people who are supposed to be able to help and told, 'hold on a minute I don’t know what I can do, I need to go talk to somebody else' after waiting nine months," she added as she also questioned why they had to travel to Omagh for the appointment and if CAMHS in Enniskillen was operating.

Sarah said another of son had tried to get help CAMHS but was unable to do so and was instead told they needed to be assessed by Autism services.

Sarah believes teenagers are "left in limbo" when it comes to the provision of mental health services in the area.

She wants to see a "complete overhaul" and while people are encouraged to speak out about their mental health, more is needed.

"It's OK not to be OK is a huge big tagline and everybody is jumping on. You need to talk more about mental health and more is needed. That is brilliant however, when you go to the people who are supposed to help you there is very little being done about it.

"Everybody is talking about it and everybody knows this but you can't get access to the services.

"We need the people in power to stop pushing paper around and start taking action.

"It all comes down to the people at the top doing nothing. Talking about talking, meetings about meetings. We don’t need meetings, we need action. This thing of meetings about meetings gets nobody anywhere."

With an initial appointment over and a second one scheduled, Sarah is asked how hopeful she is that her son will get the help he needs.

"At the minute I am going in with an open mind but I honestly don’t know because of the limitations within the service.

"Where will we be pushed next? What queue will be in next? Will we be at the top or the bottom of the queue?

"It doesn’t fill you with any hope when an emergency appointment takes nine months."

The Western Trust was contacted about both incidents with Sarah son's and while they do not comment on individual cases a spokeswoman said: "CAMHS adopts the Working together pathway for Children and Young People through CAMHS (2018). This is a regional document, jointly developed by young people and parents with lived experience, professionals involved in the commissioning and delivery of care reflecting a commitment to supporting a culture of partnership, co-working and co-production.

"This sets out regional guidance on the screening and triaging or all referrals to CAMHS,  is in line with the stepped care model of care provision, ensuring young people get access to the right service at the right time.

"If a referral meets the threshold and is accepted by CAMHS the appropriate provision of care is identified based on referral details and deemed to require an emergency, urgent or routine assessment. All targets for emergency and urgent assessments are met within the service. Unfortunately owing to lengthy waiting lists and demand for routine assessments exceeding capacity to deliver these, recommended assessments within 9 weeks are not met.

"CAMHS and The Children and Young People’s Autism Service are two separate services. Assessments for Autism are carried out only by the Children and Young People’s Autism Service and not CAMHS."