Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the evidential source is for the number given for the increases of NHS staff and in people being treated in his tweet in response to Ralf Little on 8 November 2017.

As set out in my response to the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) on 26 October 2017 to Question 109144, there has been an increase of 4,295 National Health Service staff working in Mental Health and Learning Disabilities trusts between July 2013 and July 2017. This data is obtained from NHS Digital Monthly Hospital and Community Health service workforce statistics which is available at:

www.digital.nhs.uk/media/32981/NHS-Workforce-Statistics-July-2017-Provisional-Statistics-CSV-tables/default/NHS_Workforce_Statistics_-_July_2017__csv_files

The figure of 2,700 more employed in talking therapies has been sourced from the IAPT Workforce census from 2015, 2014 and 2012.

The figure of 1,400 more people treated every day since 2010 is sourced from The Mental Health Bulletin: 2015-16 Annual report, National Reference tables. The data shows that there has been an increase of 1,396.19 people treated per day between 2010-11 and 2015-16.