Improving Access to CYP Mental Health Services (CYPMHS)

Tim McDougall is National Professional Advisor (Children and Young People’s Mental Health) for the Care Quality Commission. Tim also works as a Director of Nursing and Quality at Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. Tim spent 15 years as a CAMHS Nurse Consultant and several as a Clinical Director in CAMHS and Children’s Services. He has worked in a range of clinical settings including community child mental health teams, adolescent in-patient services and secure adolescent forensic services. Tim was formerly Nurse Advisor for CAMHS at the Department of Health in England and has been a member of several National Advisory Councils. He is interested in quality improvement and service transformation. 

Kathryn Pugh is the Programme Lead for Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies. She has worked on the programme since it was commissioned by the Department of Health in January 2011. Prior to CYP IAPT, Kathryn has worked in the following areas for the NHS : 

• Primary Care
• Acute and Mental Health Commissioning
• Specialist CAMHS Commissioning
• Head of Policy and Innovation at Young Minds
• Lead for National Mental Health Development Unit on the Implementation of the mental Health Act amendments concerning children and young people
• CAMHS Regional Development Worker in London as part of the National CAMHS Support Service
• Lead for the National Institute in Mental Health in England and NCSS for the national project to improve transition by young adults

Kevin moved into healthcare in 2008 whilst also holding a local government cabinet portfolio from 2006 with responsibility for policy covering safer neighbourhoods, and economic regeneration at his borough and county council working across place and system levels. Retiring from front line politics in 2014, he focused on his NHS career working for commissioning and provider organisations including Specialised Services leading regional teams with a strong focus on clinical audit, service improvement and stakeholder management as Director of Commissioning and Contracting.

 Before moving into politics and healthcare, he held several different management roles across further education delivering apprenticeships and vocational training programmes to employers before that holding senior project management positions with software company’s and telecommunication firms after leaving the Army following a 14-year military career as a Developed Vetting (DV) Telecommunications Engineer responsible for ICT architecture of high-grade crypto information and communication assets designing complex data interrelations operating on private terrestrial and satellite systems.

 He is passionate about helping people and communities thrive with a strong interest in technology and how this and access to education and services can support families and the local economy to thrive. He has learnt a great deal about charities since leading First Steps ED in 2019 as CEO and previously as Trustee from 2015.

 His career over the past two decades has been focused on contestability in market economics when at Derbyshire County Council he led England’s most successful Trusted Trader scheme as a direct response to protecting the county’s frail and elderly households from rouge traders by creating an accreditation scheme for residents to buy with confidence, quality and good customer satisfaction from registered businesses resulting in an increase in GDP and GVA for Derbyshire.

 In healthcare, he has taken First Steps ED’s strong community links, great services, and the support it provides to families and individuals to become recognised as the Midlands Eating Disorder charity and expanding its reach further afield. Those opportunities to become larger than the sum of its parts, is focused on building new relationships and social capital far wider than NHS eating disorder pathways and today includes working closely with schools, colleges and universities, and youth and community groups by becoming available to more people including those left behind.

Samantha qualified as a mental health nurse in 2009 and since then has worked in a number of roles within acute admission, psychiatric intensive care units and community mental health teams. Samantha has worked as a clinical lead senior nurse in several settings including community mental health and psychiatric liaison. 

She has a specialist interest in service improvement and systemic work and has completed her postgraduate certificate in NHS Leadership. 

Samantha transitioned into working with children and young people in 2017 within psychiatric liaison, helping to set up the Trust’s first ageless liaison service as well as being one of the only nurse led children’s liaison services nationwide. She moved into the team manager position in 2020 helping steer the team through the Covid pandemic whilst also supporting to clinically upskill the team to work with children who present in crisis.