Dr Cathy Lavelle is Clinical Director for Children’s Services in East London Foundation Trust and Clinical Director for the North, Central & East London CAMHS Provider Collaborative. She has been a Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist for 23 years, initially working in Newham Community CAMHS in both generic CAMHS and liaison psychiatry roles, before moving to in-patient services at The Coborn Adolescent Service for 5 years. She has extensive experience both clinically and of service improvement across a wide range of services in community CAMHS, Tier 4 CAMHS and Community Paediatrics. East London Foundation Trust is recognised for its strong focus on quality improvement, clinical leadership and co-production and ELFT CAMHS services were one of the first to be rated as outstanding by CQC.
The CAMHS provider collaborative also has a strong focus on co-production, with key targets set by service users including reducing lengths of stay and keeping young people as close to home as possible when admitted to in-patient settings. The collaborative has been very successful in it’s first 2 years and is reinvesting savings into community services to develop intensive community pathways to reduce the need for in-patient care where clinically appropriate. A current focus is on closer working with partner agencies, particularly social care and ICB’s to influence the shape of future services. The collaborative has been cited as an example of good practice by NHSE and won the prestigious HSJ award for has provider collaboration of the year in 2022.