Attempted Suicides on CAMHS Waiting List

​​​​Request ​863088921

How many children have attempted suicide while on a waiting list for mental health services in the last 5 years, and how many have attempted suicide before any contact with CAMHS?

Response

The department have determined that to provide this information would require the interrogation of all children and young people’s case files with CAMHS and would therefore take longer than the time prescribed in the Freedom (Costs) (Jersey) Regulations 2014. Artilce 16 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 is applied.

Furthermore, the availability of robust data may be limited by the challenges associated with defining an "attempted suicide." While incidents of overdose and self-harm are often used as proxy indicators, these events do not always involve suicidal intent. Consequently, there is a risk of misclassification, which may impact the reliability and interpretation of any resulting dataset.

Article Applied

Article 16 A scheduled public authority may refuse to supply information if cost excessive

(1) A scheduled public authority that has been requested to supply information may refuse to supply the information if it estimates that the cost of doing so would exceed an amount determined in the manner prescribed by Regulations.

(2) Despite paragraph (1), a scheduled public authority may still supply the information requested on payment to it of a fee determined by the authority in the manner prescribed by Regulations for the purposes of this Article.

(3) Regulations may provide that, in such circumstances as the Regulations prescribe, if two or more requests for information are made to a scheduled public authority –

(a) by one person; or

(b) by different persons who appear to the scheduled public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,

the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.