Children and teenagers in parts of Kent are waiting more than a year for mental health treatment according to a critical report by the CQC.

The health regulator today published a report into Children and Adolescent Mental Health services in Kent, run by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, rating it as needing improvement overall.

The service provides community mental health services for children and young people in parts of the county.

Waiting times for routine treatments for anxiety, low mood and autistic spectrum conditions could be more than a year.

And inspectors found that while young people were waiting to be treated, those at risk of harming themselves or others were not always monitored.

"We have worked hard to get the waiting list down but we are not using that as an excuse, ad we are not complacent. We're are continuing to push hard" - Trust spokesman

A spokesman for the trust, which took over children's mental health services in August 2012, said it inherited waiting lists of up to two years, a figure it has managed to reduce.

He said: "We have worked hard to get the waiting list down but we are not using that as an excuse, ad we are not complacent. We're are continuing to push hard."

An increased demand on the service is also partly to blame, according to the trust.

When Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust took over the Kent services, it was expecting to deal with 120 urgent patients a year, but recently saw that number in just one month.

Exacerbating these problems are staff shortages in some parts of the Kent service, highlighted by inspectors.

This means the Children and Adolescent Mental Health service relies on agency workers to plug the gaps.

The trust said difficulty recruiting staff was a common problem faced by many health services in the south east, where attractive salary offers drew high quality people to London.

In response, the trust says it is looking further afield, advertising at job fairs in Scotland and Ireland for new recruits.

It is also looking at ways it can match London salaries for nursing staff, or offer a more attractive package.

Despite the problems, inspectors found staff working at the trust's mental health services were caring, rating this element good.

Dr Paul Lelliott, CQC’s deputy chief inspector of hospitals, said: “At the time of the inspection, some of the senior team were new in post.

"It was reassuring to find that they had themselves identified many of the problems; we have seen encouraging signs of improvement in the four months since the inspection.

"People are entitled to receive treatment and care in services which are consistently safe, effective, caring and responsive to their needs.

"We will return in due course to check that the improvements needed have been made.”