Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what has been the average waiting time between referral to, and treatment by, child and adolescent mental health services since 23 March 2020; and what was the average such time from 23 March 2019 to 22 March 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information requested is not held. In order to measure waiting times to mental health services, or to determine if an assessment took place after the patient entered treatment, an access and waiting times standard for the service must be defined for analysis purposes. A national access and waiting times standard has not yet been defined for child and adolescent mental health services.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of referrals of children with mental health issues referred for treatment from (1) GPs, and (2) other health professionals, have been treated through child and adolescent mental health services since 23 March 2020; and what was the percentage of such referrals from 23 March 2019 to 22 March 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
This information is not held in the required format. We remain committed to delivering the core proposals of the children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, including the introduction of senior leads in mental health and mental health support teams in schools and colleges, as well as the piloting of a four-week waiting time for specialist NHS services. Under the NHS Long Term Plan, an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access support through NHS-funded services or school and college-based mental health support teams by 2023-24.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of referrals of children with mental health issues referred for treatment from (1) GPs, and (2) other health professionals, are treated through child and adolescent mental health services; what is the average waiting time between referral and treatment; what are the reasons given for any rejected referrals; and what thresholds must be met for referrals to be successful.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information cannot be provided because a national access and waiting times standard for children and young people’s health services has not yet been defined.
We are piloting a new four-week waiting time for children and young people’s mental health services in 12 areas to inform the development of a new national access and waiting times standard.
Information is not collected centrally on the clinical thresholds used by services to determine access to treatment or whether referrals meet these thresholds.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 26 February (HL1564), for those referrals for treatment by child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) what was (1) the average waiting time, and (2) the assessment by CAMHS after the waiting period as opposed to the initial assessment from the referral.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information cannot be provided because a national access and waiting times standard for children and young people’s health services has not yet been defined.
We are piloting a new four-week waiting time for children and young people’s mental health services in 12 areas to inform the development of a new national access and waiting times standard.
Information is not collected centrally on the clinical thresholds used by services to determine access to treatment or whether referrals meet these thresholds.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 26 February (HL1565), what advice they give to local clinical commissioning groups on the support they should offer children on waiting lists for treatment by child and adolescent mental health services, and to the parents of such children; and what assessment they have made of the quality of support commissioned by local clinical commissioning groups for such children and parents.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS England and NHS Improvement have not published advice or guidance on support that clinical commissioning groups should offer to children on waiting lists and their parents/carers, nor have they assessed local approaches to providing this support.
Children and young people’s mental health covers a wide range of needs and there is no single service model. Commissioners and providers must consider the needs of children and young people and their families and set out how they will provide a range of services to form a comprehensive children and young people’s mental health offer in their local transformation plans.
These plans are whole-system plans that set out how local areas will work together to lead and manage change for children and young people’s mental health. These are refreshed and republished each year.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of the total NHS budget is spent on child and adolescent mental health services.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Approximately 1% of the total National Health Service budget was spent on children and young people’s mental health services in 2018/19 through clinical commissioning group spend and NHS specialised commissioning.
It should be noted that this does not include other areas that may include spending on children and young people’s mental health services, such as primary care and health and justice.
We are spending more than ever before to transform community mental health services, expand crisis care and improve services for children and young people. The Government has also committed to a further £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 of extra investment in mental health services to support 380,000 more adults and 345,000 more children.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what percentage of referrals of children from school-based teams are referred for treatment through child and adolescent mental health services; and what is the average waiting time between referral and treatment.
Answered by Lord Bethell
This information is not available. The Mental Health Services Data Set does not contain data specific to ‘school-based teams’.