How to make a referral

Referrals accepted from:

GPs, Health visitors, Midwives, Nurse, Other NHS services, Voluntary services

Referral criteria:

Possible symptoms:

Intrusive thoughts such as repeated memories, distressing dreams or vivid flashbacks which mean they feel they are reliving the experience, seeing or feeling it again.
Avoiding reminders of the traumatic experience, including avoiding people, places, activities, objects and situations that may trigger distressing memories. They may not want to talk about it or how they feel about it.
Altered mood and memory, cannot remember parts of the experience, negative thoughts and feeling leading to ongoing altered thoughts about themselves. Blaming self or others, fear anger, guilt or shame around the experience. Unable to enjoy activities feeling detached from other people, unable to experience positive emotions.
Altered reactivity, being irritable and angry outbursts, behaving recklessly or self-destructive, being overly alert and watchful of their surroundings, being suspicious of people, easily startled, poor concentration, poor sleeping pattern.
Extreme fear of birth or pregnancy, avoiding pregnancy, avoiding accessing care or talking about birth or pregnancy, requesting a caesarean section due to fear of birth or dying.
Complex grief – referral at least 6-12 months after loss to allow for normal grief, symptoms for at least one month such as changing sense of identity, marked sense of disbelief about the death, avoidance of reminders, intense emotional pain (such as anger, bitterness, sorrow) related to the death, difficulty engaging with friends or planning for the future, emotional numbness, feeling that life is meaningless, intense loneliness.

It is important to note that these symptoms can vary in severity and may not all be present.

All of the above presentations must display a level of complexity which means that women would not be able to access therapeutic support via primary care services.

Referrals have no timescale to be referred to us, if they have current symptoms that are affecting their ability to function in daily life.
Baby loss is any loss of a baby in pregnancy or up to one year of age.

Exclusion criteria

This service is not appropriate for:

Crisis support (contact first response or local single point of access team)
New thoughts or acts of violence, self harm or suicidal ideation
Sudden onset of severe mental health needs or suspected psychosis
Parent infant relationship issues only
Current substance misuse not in treatment

Please note that joint working processes with other mental health teams must be in place for service users who:

require care coordination and multi-disciplinary team input
require psychiatry input
have a level of risk to self and others which cannot be safely managed by a lead psychological professional approach
If under 18 can be joint working with CAMHS – initial referral will need to go to CAMHS

Referral form

Read the Paths referral guidance and download the referral form.

The team aims to assess all new referrals as soon as possible (within two weeks). If the patient requires more urgent intervention please contact your local crisis team.
Please complete all relevant fields of the form and as much detail as possible to prevent us coming back to you for further information.
Once complete, please email to westyorkshirepaths@swyt.nhs.uk