On 22 June 2026, Keir Starmer announced his resignation as Prime Minister, making him the seventh leader the United Kingdom has seen in just ten years. For much of the country, that is a political headline. For anyone working in, or commissioning, children’s and adolescent mental health services, it raises an urgent and very specific question: what happens to the CAMHS workforce now?
Seven Leaders. One Workforce Still in Crisis.
Political instability is not an abstract problem for NHS mental health services. It has direct, measurable consequences. Hiring decisions stall. Commissioning priorities shift. Long-term workforce planning, already difficult in a sector under sustained pressure, becomes even harder to execute when the policy landscape can change overnight.
The data reflects how serious the situation already is. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, CAMHS has the highest consultant vacancy rate of any psychiatric specialism, with one in five consultant psychiatrist posts vacant and a total vacancy rate, including locum-covered posts, of more than one in three. Meanwhile, for CAMHS services specifically, since 2016 the number of children and young people in contact with services has expanded at over four times the pace of the psychiatry workforce. (NHScampaign British Medical Association)
That gap, between demand and the workforce available to meet it, does not pause for a leadership contest.
Who Is Andy Burnham, and Why Does It Matter for Mental Health?
The overwhelming favourite to succeed Starmer is Andy Burnham, the former Mayor of Greater Manchester and a former Secretary of State for Health under Gordon Brown. Burnham is a longstanding advocate of health and social care integration, dedicated to improving access to mental health services, and his tenure as Mayor gave him hands-on experience running one of the UK’s most ambitious integrated care models. (Wikipedia NHS Confederation)
For those working in CAMHS, this background is meaningful. A Prime Minister who has sat in the health secretary’s chair and who has publicly championed mental health provision is a different proposition to one learning the sector from scratch.
But experience at the top does not automatically translate to change on the frontline. The structural pressures facing CAMHS services, workforce shortages, underfunded community pathways, an over-reliance on locum and agency staffing to cover permanent gaps, require more than political goodwill. They require funded, sustained, long-term commitment that survives changes of personnel at Westminster.
What the CAMHS Sector Needs to Hear From the Next PM
As Labour’s leadership contest gets underway, with nominations opening on 9 July 2026, there are specific commitments that the CAMHS sector should be demanding from every candidate:
A dedicated CAMHS workforce strategy. Not a footnote in a broader NHS plan, but a named, funded approach to growing the pipeline of trainees, addressing pay disparity, and reducing the vacancy rates that are leaving services dangerously stretched.
Clarity on NHS integration. Burnham’s Greater Manchester model of integrated care is well-regarded. But what does national integration actually look like for CAMHS, and will children’s mental health be explicitly named as a priority within it, rather than absorbed into a generic “mental health” category that historically underserves young people?
Protection of existing mental health funding. As of March 2026, just 77% of urgent CAMHS cases and 80% of routine cases were being seen within recommended timeframes. Any incoming government that does not treat this as a crisis requiring immediate workforce investment is not engaging seriously with the scale of the problem. (British Medical Association)
What Political Uncertainty Means for CAMHS Employers Right Now
For NHS Trusts, ICBs, independent providers, and residential children’s services, the period between now and September 2026, when a new Labour leader is expected to be confirmed, represents a window of particular risk. Senior NHS leaders have already departed during the political turbulence of recent months, and with commissioning priorities likely to shift under new leadership, workforce planning decisions that have been deferred will need to be made quickly.
Organisations that have specialist staffing partnerships in place are better positioned to respond. The ability to source experienced, compliant CAMHS clinicians at pace, without the friction of framework procurement or lengthy compliance checks, becomes a genuine operational advantage when the landscape around you is changing.
Our Position
At CAMHS Professionals, we have been operating in the children’s mental health staffing sector through multiple governments, NHS reorganisations, and cycles of political promise and delay. We understand the CAMHS workforce at a level that general healthcare recruiters simply cannot, and we know that the children waiting for support cannot afford to wait for political certainty before services are adequately staffed.
Whether the next Prime Minister is Andy Burnham or someone else entirely, the work continues. So do we.
Are You Planning Your CAMHS Workforce Strategy for the Months Ahead?
If you are a service manager, clinical lead, or HR professional in a CAMHS setting, now is the time to get a staffing plan in place that is resilient to political change.
Get in touch with the CAMHS Professionals team today to discuss your upcoming recruitment needs, or register as a clinician to access roles across NHS and independent CAMHS services nationwide.
CAMHS Professionals is the UK’s only specialist CAMHS recruitment agency, connecting experienced clinicians with NHS Trusts, independent providers, and residential children’s services across the UK. We are part of the Healthy Staffing Group.
