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 22 January (HL12044), what progress they have made on the piloting of a four-week waiting time for specialist NHS services in relation to children and young people’s mental health; and whether there is any difference between such a waiting time and a national access and waiting times standard.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have made good progress on carrying out the core proposals of the children and young people’s mental health green paper, including piloting a four-week waiting time to access specialist National Health Service children and young people’s mental health services.
In 2018 we announced the first 25 trailblazer sites delivering 59 mental health support teams in and near schools and colleges. Twelve of the trailblazer sites are also testing four-week waiting times specialist NHS services. The pilots will inform a recommendation to Government on the potential development and roll out of access and waiting time standards for all children and young people who need specialist 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, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 22 January (HL12045), why they have not set a national access and waiting times standard for child and adolescent mental health services.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We have made good progress on carrying out the core proposals of the children and young people’s mental health green paper, including piloting a four-week waiting time to access specialist National Health Service children and young people’s mental health services.
In 2018 we announced the first 25 trailblazer sites delivering 59 mental health support teams in and near schools and colleges. Twelve of the trailblazer sites are also testing four-week waiting times specialist NHS services. The pilots will inform a recommendation to Government on the potential development and roll out of access and waiting time standards for all children and young people who need specialist 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, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 22 January (HL12047), what steps they are taking to improve the collection of data in relation to the level of (1) extreme anxiety, (2) self-harm, and (3) suicide, amongst young and adolescent boys.
Answered by Lord Bethell
We are working with NHS Digital, mental health providers and partner organisations to improve the collection of data in the mental health services data set on people referred to secondary mental health services for anxiety and those who self-harm whilst an inpatient. We also fund the Multicentre for Self-Harm to provide representative and reliable data on self-harm in England.
Data on suicide registrations by coroners is collected by the Office for National Statistics and there is a time lag due to the length of time it can take to hold an inquest. Public Health England is piloting a national real-time surveillance system to monitor suspected suicide, by collecting early real time data which can be used to identify patterns of risk and causal factors, to inform national and local responses. HM Treasury has announced £1.2million funding to help support the development of the national system.
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 22 January (HL12046), what assessment they have made of the reasons for the “poor diagnosis recording in the Mental Health Services Data Set” on incidence of anorexia nervosa among young and adolescent girls under the age of 18 years old; and what steps they are taking to address any such poor diagnosis recording.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Diagnosis recording within the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) is not mandatory and not all providers submit this information. The recording of diagnoses within the MHSDS is entered using clinical coding which some providers may be unable to do for various reasons. Additionally, a diagnosis may not be confirmed immediately for some patients. There are also other data quality issues around non-completion. Month on month reporting by providers can also be irregular. We are working with NHS Digital, providers and partner organisations to address these issues.
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 22 January (HL12047), whether they collect data on the level of self-harm amongst young and adolescent boys outside of mental health hospitals; if so, what was the such level since 23 March 2020; and if not, why not.
Answered by Lord Bethell
NHS Digital separately collects data though hospital episode statistics on the number of accident and emergency (A&E) attendances due to intentional self-harm and the number of finished admission episodes with a secondary diagnosis of intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old.
Between 23 March 2020 and 30 November 2020 there were 4,011 A&E attendances due to intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old and 2,022 finished admission episodes with a secondary diagnosis of intentional self-harm for male patients under the age of 18 years old. This information only represents activity serious enough to require hospital treatment.
Asked by: Baroness Fall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people have been treated for mental health issues on child and adolescent wards in hospitals since 23 March 2020; and what was the figure for such treatment from 23 March 2019 to 22 March 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The information requested is shown in the following table:
23 March 2019 – 22 March 2020 | 3,564 |
23 March 2020 – 30 November 2020 | 2,822 |
Source: Mental Health Services Dataset
Notes:
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 reported level of (1) anorexia nervosa, (2) self-harm, and (3) suicide, amongst young and adolescent girls since 23 March 2020; and what were the reported such levels from 23 March 2019 to 22 March 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Information on the incidence of anorexia nervosa among young and adolescent girls under the age of 18 years old is not available due to poor diagnosis recording in the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS).
Between 23 March 2019 and 22 March 2020 there were 493 reported incidents of self-harm amongst girls under the age of 18 years old reported in MHSDS by the secondary care mental health services. For the period 23 March 2020 to 30 November 2020, there were 399 incidents. These numbers are based on the data submitted by the secondary care mental health services to MHSDS and include only incidents of self-harm in the mental health hospitals. The numbers include November provisional data and are likely to be an undercount of the true activity. This is the latest data available to NHS Digital.
For suicide, the Office for National Statistics reports that there were 63 suicide registrations relating to girls aged 10-19 years old in 2019 (49 registrations between Jan-Sept 2019). Provisional information for January to September 2020 (Jan-Sep) shows that there were 24 suicide registrations relating to girls aged 10-19 years old. All deaths caused by suicide in England are investigated by coroners. Given the length of time it takes to hold an inquest, most deaths are registered around five to six months after they occurred. The number of suicides registered in 2020 should be interpreted with caution due to the pandemic causing further delays on the coroner’s service resulting in further delays to inquests.
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 reported level of (1) extreme anxiety, (2) self-harm, and (3) suicide, amongst young and adolescent boys since 23 March 2020; and what were the reported such levels from 23 March 2019 to 22 March 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Between 23 March 2019 and 22 March 2020, there were 34,754 boys reported in the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) under 18 years old who were referred to secondary mental health services with a primary reason for referral of anxiety. For the period 23 March 2020 to 30 November 2020, 20,842 boys were referred.
The MHSDS shows that between 23 March 2019 and 22 March 2020 there were 122 incidents of self-harm reported by boys under the age of 18 years old, and between 23 March 2020 and 30 November 2020, there were 82 incidents of self-harm. These numbers are based on the data submitted by the secondary care mental health services to MHSDS and include only incidents of self-harm in the mental health hospitals. The numbers include November provisional data and are likely to be an undercount of the true activity. This is the latest data available to NHS Digital.
For suicide, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that there were 123 suicide registrations relating to boys aged 10-19 years old in 2019 (92 registrations between January and September 2019). Provisional information for January to September 2020 shows that there were 80 suicide registrations relating to boys aged 10-19 years old. All deaths caused by suicide in England are investigated by coroners. Given the length of time it takes to hold an inquest, most deaths are registered around five to six months after they occurred. The number of suicides registered in 2020 should be interpreted with caution due to the pandemic causing further delays on the coroner’s service resulting in further delays to inquests.
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.