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The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) said there are “ongoing challenges” facing its waiting lists. The Trust’s chief executive officer, Steve Grange, said there had been a “meteoric rise” in referrals for some services. The CPFT delivers many NHS services that are provided in the community, including physical and mental health, and specialist services.
The Trust also runs the Cavell Centre in Peterborough, and Fulbourn Hospital in Cambridge. A report presented to the CPFT board of directors this week (March 26) said waiting lists “continue to pose some challenges” for both mental and physical health services. It said: “Overall, the trend continues to be upwards, despite concerted efforts to manage them downwards.
” The report said that as of December the adult ADHD waiting list stood at 7,017, a 26 per cent increase since the start of 2024. Similarly, the adult autism waiting list had increased by 29 per cent in the same time period, with 2,276 people waiting as of the end of December. However, the overall adult mental health waiting list (excluding ADHD and autism waiting lists) had gone down slightly, with a drop of 40 patients, leaving 3,027 waiting at the end of December.
Children’s mental health waiting lists have also been increasing with 1,723 waiting for an assessment in January and 2,403 waiting for treatment. The report said the Trust was receiving a “sustained increase” in referrals for ADHD services for children over recent months. It added that the learning disability services waiting list for assessment was also “higher than it has been in previous years”.
RECOMMENDED READING: Cambridgeshire roads prioritised for repairs in 2025 Holly Sutherland, chief operating officer, said the Trust had “still got ongoing challenges with waiting list positions”. She said there had been “some really good progress” with adult mental health services, but recognised the waits for adult ADHD and autism services “remains challenging with increasing referrals”. Ms Sutherland said discussions were ongoing with the Integrated Care Board on how to find a solution for this issue.
Mr Grange said there had been a “meteoric rise” in referrals for ADHD services nationally. Professor Ed Bullmore, a non-executive director on the board, also recognised there had been a “stratospheric increase in referrals for ADHD and autism”. He also highlighted some of the long waiting times being faced by children for physical health services, including paediatric community nursing.
The report said the longest wait that had been faced for community paediatrics was 76 weeks. Prof. Bullmore said waiting more than a year was “a long time for a child”.
Eileen Milner, the Trust chair, raised concerns about people with learning disabilities facing longer waiting lists to access support. She said: “Last week marked the fifth anniversary of lockdown, it feels like a long time ago now. “I remember saying at the time, we will be living with the consequences of lockdown for a generation at least, and I think we are.
“People with learning disabilities were incredibly adversely impacted in terms of their access to services and support, and in terms of people returning to services and support after the pandemic began to fade, they came back to services not as quickly. “Seeing the learning disabilities waiting list deteriorating, I am concerned about that, this is a community of people who had very significant covid impacts and now waiting to access services is compounding that impact further.” Ms Milner asked for more information about what was being done to address this situation.
Ms Sutherland highlighted work she said was being led by the Integrated Care Board to streamline children’s neurodevelopmental services, so that a child and their family could attend one appointment and see various different specialists. She said at the moment they found that patients were having to go to multiple appointments for support on different issues. She said: “That piece of work is being led by the Integrated Care Board, but we are very engaged in that piece of work, because we recognise getting help to children will hopefully prevent issues in adulthood.
” Prof. Bullmore said he believed this would have a “massive impact” for families if this was possible. He said he knew of a colleague who had said they had to attend a different clinic every week to get the various support needed for their child who had a learning disability.
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