Ms Sarah Hughes:

From a USI perspective, we welcome the move up to 25 years old. Looking at the age most people move into higher education, it is 17, 18 or 19. Many of them do not just move from second level to third level education; many of them are moving around the country. Therefore, the local service that they might have been accessing for their mental health care is no longer their local service, even if they were transitioning to adult services. They were transitioning both area and service previously. That was one of the factors that made so many fall through the cracks and put a lot of pressure on on-campus services. In higher education, psychiatry is not available on most campuses; there is psychology, counselling, disability services and that kind of thing, but not psychiatric help. We would welcome that move. Again, there is a concern. We are all well aware of the length of the waiting lists for CAMHS. If a group of people from the adult waiting list are being moved to the child and adolescent waiting list, how long is it before that gap in service provision grows for those young people?

They have been receiving the care and are now going back to the end of the queue.