If your child is referred for specialist mental health help in Swansea Bay, the odds are roughly even that they will not be seen by the specialist team at all. Around half of the 2,700-plus referrals the service took last year were pointed somewhere else after triage, the service’s lead nurse told councillors in July.
The service is CAMHS, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, the NHS team that assesses and treats under-18s with anxiety, depression, eating disorders and other conditions too serious for a GP or school to handle alone. In Swansea and Neath Port Talbot it is run by Swansea Bay University Health Board.
Its lead nurse, Delia Richards, gave the figures to Swansea Council‘s child and family services scrutiny panel on 28 July. The convenor’s letter recording the session is in the papers for the panel’s next meeting on Tuesday.
Those families get individual advice and are signposted to early help teams, social care or charities, the panel heard. Asked how the service knows that works, it was told there is “currently no mechanism to monitor whether signposting resulted in successful outcomes”, though a child who comes back to CAMHS can be tracked.
Younger children, and more eating disorders
The letter records three trends the panel was given. Referrals relating to eating disorders and disordered eating are rising. So are referrals for children of primary school age. And anxiety remains the most common reason a child is referred, with poverty, family pressure and stress at school named as the things pushing need upwards.
The 2,700-plus referrals in the last year continue an upward trend the panel was told is being seen across Wales and the UK.
Four hours if it is a crisis
A child in crisis can be seen within four hours, the panel heard, with other urgent cases prioritised for assessment within two weeks and the option to re-triage if circumstances change. An all-Wales triage tool decides who falls into which group.
For everyone else, the service is meeting Welsh Government’s target of assessing 80% of referrals within 28 days, and Ms Richards told councillors it had consistently met the treatment target since March 2026. Changes to what families are offered at first contact, she said, mean children hear from the service sooner.
In schools, an in-reach team runs advice clinics, classroom sessions and support for staff, which the panel welcomed as early intervention before problems reach crisis point. Progress is measured with recognised tools including the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale.
What the safeguarding board is watching
The same meeting heard from the Regional Safeguarding Board, whose intelligence hub now pools information from social services, police, health and probation. Asked what the biggest current risks to children were, the panel was told exploitation, youth violence, weapon-related incidents and online harm.
Councillors also asked about children educated at home and were told that education services already have robust procedures for monitoring them, and that home education had not been flagged as a significant safeguarding risk by the hub.
The letter, from panel convenor Cllr Mark Tribe to cabinet member for children, young people and families Alyson Anthony, asks for no formal response. The panel meets at the Guildhall and online at 4.30pm on Tuesday.
Anyone under 25 in Wales can contact Meic, the confidential helpline, on 080880 23456 or by text on 84001. Samaritans are available 24 hours a day on 116 123.
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