More than 200 Wandsworth children have now been waiting over 30 weeks for mental health treatment, up from 16, as referrals for ADHD and autism surge. Twenty-five have been waiting more than a year, up from three.
South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust runs the borough’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and has provided the figures in an update on CAMHS waiting times that Wandsworth Council’s health scrutiny committee asked for, and which councillors will discuss on Wednesday evening.
For a child, 30 weeks is most of a school year. In April 2024, about nine in ten children started treatment within the NHS standard of 18 weeks. By February 2026, the latest month on the trust’s chart, just over half did.
What is driving it
The trust’s own verdict is that performance “has deteriorated over 2025/26”, and it puts the long waits down to demand for ADHD and autism support. Referrals for suspected ADHD and autism have gone from 326 in 2020/21 to 2,080 in the year to March. That is more than six times as many, and nearly half of all referrals to the service.
Referrals of every kind rose by a fifth in a year, to 4,485. “This growth in demand has also driven the increase in the number of children and young people waiting longer than 30 and 52 weeks for treatment,” the report says.
The average wait between referral and treatment was 15.1 weeks in the year to March, up from 14 the year before. The trust says that average “masks the growing number of patients experiencing substantially longer waits”. Even so, the average has doubled in three years: it was 7.5 weeks in 2022/23.
In the trust’s figures for ADHD and autism, the average wait from referral to assessment was 33.9 weeks in the year to March. That is down from a peak of 41.5 weeks the year before, but more than double the 13.8 weeks of 2022/23.
Getting through the first screening for these referrals took around 12 months before the trust brought them into one central team and began using digital screening tools. It now takes about eight months across the five boroughs the trust serves. Shorter first assessments are also being tried, to see whether more children can be assessed.
A “substantial proportion” of the children waiting for ADHD support are not waiting for a first diagnosis but for medication to be assessed, prescribed and adjusted, according to the trust. Around 150 of them are expected to go to an outside provider, Haven Medical, under a partnership the trust is setting up. Once their medication is stable, they go back to their GP.
Parents are referring their children themselves far more than they did: about 250 times in the year to March, against about a dozen in 2022/23. That is still only about one referral in 18. GPs make the most, about two in five, and schools and their special needs coordinators more than a quarter, as rising demand for special needs support squeezes the borough’s budget.
| Referred by | 2022/23 | 2025/26 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPs | ~1,600 | ~1,770 | 10% |
| Schools | ~490 | ~770 | 58% |
| Special needs coordinators | ~260 | ~450 | 75% |
| Hospital children’s doctors | ~410 | ~370 | 10% |
| Community children’s doctors | ~80 | ~200 | 146% |
| Parents and family | ~12 | ~250 | 1,980% |
| All referrals | 3,431 | 4,485 | 31% |
Families on the list get Waiting Well packs with crisis information and self-help resources, along with text reminders and wellbeing checks. Children judged to be at higher risk are kept under regular review by psychiatrists and senior psychologists.
The eating disorder service met its national target: every child referred routinely started treatment within four weeks in the year to March. Of the children who needed urgent help, 87.5 per cent started within five days, down from all of them the year before.
Wandsworth is also due a dedicated mental health A&E for people in crisis, though it is not open yet and its business case is still being drawn up.
Reducing long waits “remains a key priority”, the report says. It gives no date by which the trust expects to see children within 18 weeks again.
What happens next
Councillors on the health scrutiny committee discuss the update on Wednesday 11 November at 7.30pm, in Room 123 at Wandsworth Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public and webcast. Councillors are asked to comment on the report, and any views or recommendations they make go to the council’s cabinet or to the NHS.
The committee is chaired by Conservative councillor Jonathan Iliff. Its other members are Conservatives Will Sweet (deputy chair), Kirsten Botting and Angela Graham, and Labour’s Stephen Worrall, Jasmin Glynne (East Putney) and Elizabeth Simos.
If your family is waiting
- In a crisis: the CAMHS Crisis Line is open every day, 9am to 11pm, on 0203 228 5980. Outside those hours, call NHS 111 and press 2 for mental health.
- By message: the 24-hour Crisis Text Service is on WhatsApp at 0303 330 1511.
- If a life is at risk: call 999 or go to A&E.
- Concerns about care: the trust’s Patient Advice and Liaison Service is on 0203 513 6150, weekdays 9.30am to 4.30pm, or email pals@swlstg.nhs.uk.
- Contact the committee: each member’s details are on the committee’s page. The chair, Jonathan Iliff, is at Cllr.J.Iliff@wandsworth.gov.uk.
- Watch the meeting: the papers and webcast are on the council’s website.
