Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of mental health service closures on the number of children waiting to access mental health support.

We have made no formal assessment. The National Health Service Mental Health Dashboard reports 605,012 children and young people have accessed support through NHS-funded community services in Quarter 1 2021/22, the most recently available data. This is an increase from 589,705 at the end of 2020/2021.

We have previously announced an additional £79 million to expand capacity in children’s mental health services in 2021/22, allowing 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services; 2,000 more to access eating disorder services; and a faster increase in the coverage of new mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have invested a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people’s mental health. These investments are in addition to the extra £2.3 billion a year for mental health services by 2023/24, which will allow 345,000 more children and young people aged 0 to 25 years old to access NHS-funded mental health support.