A FORMER mental health worker claims she repeatedly warned senior staff about the risks within a vital service as an exodus of employees took place last summer.

The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, worked at the crisis-hit Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Cumbria (Camhs) and saw what she describes as a system in "mess".

The worker, who has now left her role at the service, spoke to the Evening Mail about what she perceived as obvious dangers, with staff overwhelmed by the number of young and vulnerable patients they were responsible for.

Sudden staff departures, sickness and stress were all outlined as problems by the former staff member. She brought up her concerns which she believed was putting children at risk with senior management at the time.

The worker told the Evening Mail: "Camhs has been in a mess for a long, long time. It's not good enough for everyone involved - the families, the staff.

"The turnover of managers in that team is incredibly high. When I was there the last manager was the seventh manager in five years.

"We raised concern about the safety and volume of referrals. It was too high."

The woman also spoke about problems with staff departures, saying up to ten employees left Camhs last year - stretching the service to the limit.

She added: "The redundant senior staff were replaced with equally qualified ones but they were inexperienced."

A spokeswoman for Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust said improvements were being made to the service to deal with the shortage and the problems that exist within Camhs.

She said: “A number of staff did leave the Camhs team last year which is why we wrote to GPs and families in December regarding our concerns about the impact of this to waiting lists.

"As already reported, since then we have worked incredibly hard to fully recruited to all positions within all of our Camhs teams. With the exception of psychiatry this is now complete.

"We have also strengthened the operational management of our Camhs teams. We continue to work with our partners to ensure that all referrals into Camhs are appropriate and to ensure that everybody understands their role in ensuring good mental health and well being of the county’s children."

The Evening Mail has launched a petition calling for urgent action and a funding review into child mental health services in Cumbria, following a series of damning local case studies where families have been unable to get support at times of crisis.

You can sign the petition on our website at www.nwemail.co.uk or at four locations in Barrow: the Evening Mail office in Abbey Road, the Barrow & District Disability Association in School Street, the Labour party office in Hartington Street, and SAFA in Duke Street.