- SERVICE PROVIDER
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust
This is an organisation that runs the health and social care services we inspect
Assessment report published 7 August 2026
Contents
Ratings - Specialist community mental health services for children and young people
Our view of the service
We completed an unannounced inspection of specialist community mental health services for children and young people. The service last had a focused inspection in July 2022 which covered the key question of safe only, which was rated as requires improvement. At this inspection, the rating has changed to good. For this inspection we provided 24 hours notice of the inspection to ensure someone would be available at each of the team bases. We inspected on 14, 15 and 16 April 2026. This was a comprehensive inspection looking at all 5 key questions and all quality statements. We carried out this inspection as the service had previously been rated requires improvement within the last 5 years. Our previous inspection identified breaches in Regulation 18 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 Staffing and Regulation 9 HSCA (RA) Regulations 2014 Person-centred care. At this inspection these areas had improved and were not in breach of regulation. The services that we inspected provided specialist community mental health support for children and young people up to the age of 18 years old. This report will refer to child and adolescent mental health services as CAMHS throughout. However, we did identify a breach of Regulation 12 Safe care and treatment, in relation to risk assessments and documentation of risk with regards to safety summaries and safety planning. At our previous inspection, this had been highlighted however had not sufficiently improved. Before the inspection visits, we reviewed information that we held about the service. During the inspection, the inspection team visited 9 out of 29 teams. We visited the following teams: • Teeside CAMHS Crisis and Intensive Home Treatment • Getting Help Team Tees Valley • Neurodevelopmental Assessment Team Teesside • Getting Help Team Durham Darlington • Getting More Help, Hartlepool • Getting More Help Learning Disabilities CAMHS Teesside • CAMHS Eating Disorder Team Harrogate • CAMHS Harrogate Community • CAMHS North Yorkshire Single Point of Access We found that teams were passionate, caring and committed to providing high quality care to young people and their families. The services used feedback to make improvements to the service to meet the needs of people in their local communities. Managers were supportive of staff and valued their teams and the work they were doing. Staff spoke positively of their teams and the support they received from each other. Feedback from carers and young people was positive, reflecting observations we undertook of appointments and assessments during the inspection. We identified some issues with documentation and recording of risk within the online systems, however, risk was well managed overall within services and young people were receiving safe care and treatment. Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act Compliance Summary Clinicians we spoke with all had a good understanding of the Mental Health Act (MHA) and Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and when necessary, use of legislation was appropriate. Staff within children and young people’s services all had knowledge and awareness of Gillick competence (a UK legal principle determining that children under 16 can consent to medical treatment without parental knowledge or permission if they possess sufficient understanding, intelligence, and maturity to fully appreciate the proposed care). Training in both the MHA and MCA was mandatory for staff and training compliance across the services was above target and most services were at 100% training compliance. MHA and MCA mandatory training included assessing mental capacity, best interests, deprivation of liberty, applying the MCA to young people aged 16 or 17, the MCA as part of human rights, the relationship between the MCA and the MHA, and MHA levels 1 and 2.
People's experience of this service
We spoke with 19 carers of young people accessing services.
In September 2025, the Trust changed their electronic patient experience system. This transition provided an opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of all patient and carer experience surveys. T survey questions were co-produced with service users and carers to ensure they were meaningful, accessible, and aligned with what mattered most to people using services.
One carer had fed back that they have regular contact with the crisis team for their child and each time, they consistently went above and beyond to ensure their child is listened to and felt supported. Another carer fed back that their appointment was on time, the clinician was informed and wanted to know more about the family’s situation and that support was offered and explained with a follow up appointment arranged. They felt the process was extremely inclusive.
Patient and carer feedback was generally positive, with praise given to clinicians’ person-centred approach and the support offered to families. Carers fed back that they were met with kindness, compassion and patience and that their loved ones looked forward to their appointments. A theme throughout feedback was that young people “felt seen” and that services offered “safe spaces” to open up. However, some feedback referred to communication between professionals in different disciplines, which was not always current. Overall, the Trust’s survey feedback had good response rates and positive feedback, noting support, clinicians’ skills and kind, empathic approaches as common themes. Young people’s voices were captured through reviews of compliments and complaints.
The service regularly reviewed patient and carer feedback in order to identify areas for improvement and had action plans with dates to embed these. The Trust used a variety of methods to collect feedback, including paper surveys which were sent via a freepost address, QR codes which were displayed using posters and business cards and could be displayed on the back of ID badges or handed out to patients or carers during appointments. Weblinks were available. The most popular method for feedback was QR codes.
We also completed observations of appointments during our onsite inspection. We observed 19 appointments over three days which evidenced kind, compassionate approaches from staff, good therapeutic relationships and holistic approaches to young people’s needs.