A BOLTON team has been praised for supporting vulnerable young adults in Bolton as pressures on services continue to rise.

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) team at Royal Bolton Hospital has been shortlisted for Mental Health Team of the Year by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Awards.

Judges on the national panel picked out the team for its work redesigning the service to respond to increasing demand, whilst continuing to meet the target of seeing all new accepted referrals within the four-week assessment target.

In the 12 months since November 2015, the services has welcomed 1,375 new cases and responded to hundreds of urgent assessments.

Dr Ian Dufton, clinical lead at CAHMS, said: “The number of cases never go down, they always go up. It’s a tricky balance, you cannot see less people but you can’t cut down the time you see them for. It is small team who do a lot of work and we work hard. What we do is ordinary, it’s what a service should do and do well, but it is really nice for the team to be shortlisted for doing something well, they are thrilled.”

CAMHS works with children and young people to help them cope with issues arising from mental health and behaviour. A team of three have been shortlisted for the award, while the service includes four full-time clinicians, a consultant nurse and Dr Dufton.

However, despite making the national targets in the last couple of years, he argues that the figures may not look so healthy in the future if health and social care continues to face cuts.