WHSCT limits Card Before You Leave to weekdays — SkimNews
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- WHSCT reduced the Card Before You Leave scheme to Monday-to-Friday operation in August, ending weekend and bank-holiday provision as part of wider savings measures.
- CAMHS now assesses young people who present out of hours and are classified as low risk on the next working day, rather than the next calendar day.
- Card Before You Leave continues to provide clinically appropriate assessment and support to high-risk young people under unchanged arrangements; no changes have been made at Belfast Health Trust, Northern Trust, Southern Trust or South Eastern Trust.
- Joe McEvoy said weekends and bank holidays are peak times for young people's distress, with a Friday presentation now waiting until Monday, Tuesday after a bank holiday or Wednesday across two bank holidays.
- Julie Middleton called for the reduced hours to be reversed and warned that a young person deemed low risk could move into higher risk rapidly.
- Mark H Durkan said the trust's need to save money was affecting services the population needs, while urging parents not to be deterred from seeking help for their child.
- Mike Farrar said Northern Ireland's health and social care system faces an £800m funding gap, as health trusts announced proposals for savings of up to 12% over three years.
Why it matters: For low-risk young people and families in the WHSCT area, the practical change is a longer wait: a Friday presentation can be assessed Monday, while a bank-holiday weekend can mean Tuesday or Wednesday. High-risk arrangements are unchanged, concentrating the disruption among low-risk cases at the times Joe McEvoy says distress peaks.
Ask SkimNews
