NHFT shortlisted for HSJ Award for leading improvements to young people's mental health services across the East Midlands
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 2025 Health Service Journal Awards for its work leading the transformation of children and young people's mental health services (CAMHS) across the East Midlands.
NHFT leads the East Midlands CAMHS Provider Collaborative, which provides community and inpatient services to support the mental health and wellbeing of young people throughout the region. Part of the East Midlands Alliance for Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism, it is a way of developing closer partnership working - involving service users and their families - between CAMHS providers in Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.
The collaborative was formed to make things better for children and young people in the East Midlands, and its work to deliver genuine positive change has been recognised in the 'Provider Collaboration of the Year' category of the prestigious annual HSJ Awards.
The awards entry highlights how the collaborative set out to tackle a need for urgent improvements to CAMHS provision in the region. Too many children and young people were waiting too long for treatment, unable to access the support they needed and, in many cases, admitted as inpatients when this was not the most appropriate treatment for them.
Working in close partnership with service users and their families, the collaborative has developed a shared set of agreed aims to bring CAMHS care closer to people's homes, improve the support available in the community and reduce the need for young people to be admitted to inpatient care.
Since its launch in 2021, the collaborative has reduced inpatient admissions by 65% and introduced new initiatives to improve experiences and outcomes for young people and their families. Just one example is the creation of the Family Ambassador service, which works closely with families and carers to provide support and advocacy across the region's five inpatient units.
Simon Harris, Director of New Care Models for the East Midlands CAMHS Collaborative, said:
"We're delighted to have been shortlisted for this prestigious national award and we hope that showcasing our work in this way will help even more families across the country to benefit from what we have learned through our collaborative work. It's fantastic to be recognised for what we have achieved so far but we know there is so much more to do. We are at the start of a journey of transformation and our hard work continues to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our young people."
NHFT now goes forward to the HSJ Awards 2025 final in November, when the winner of the Provider Collaboration of the Year category will be announced.