Laurence Baldwin
Coventry University, UK
Title: Does the rise of metrics in UK healthcare threaten or offer opportunities for nursing identity in child and adolescent mental health?
Biography
Biography: Laurence Baldwin
Abstract
Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) within the UK National Health Service have often been seen as a ‘Cinderella service’ but due to increasing pressure and attention have received much more policy development in the past ten years. Important amongst this is the development of Children and Young People’s Improved Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP-IAPT) which emphasizes evidence-based approaches, and the use of routine outcome measures. Whilst it is giving nurses increased access to training in cognitive behavioural therapies, systemic therapies and parenting therapies, it does not put much emphasis on the things which young people identify as important for young people in terms of engagement, or skills which have traditionally been seen as nursing strengths. This approach, and emphasis on generic skills, has implications for the identity of CAMHS nurses, who make up 40% of the CAMHS workforce (the largest single professional group). Whilst other professional groups have been careful to protect their professional identity, nursing within this speciality has not been so quick to assert its unique identity and contribution to care, so psychologists and psychiatrists have provided the main leadership within this speciality. Mental health and paediatric nursing priviledges the relational aspects of care which are important to children and young people, and should be in a better position to qualitatively enunciate the contribution that nurses make to CAMHS. This session will explore options for CAMHS nurses to better explain and value their contribution to care.