Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of mental health services for children and young people in the North East.

NHS England in the North East and Cumbria commission in-patient services for children and young people with a mental illness, learning disabilities, autism and eating disorders. Young people have access to assessment and treatment units, psychiatric intensive care, low security and medium security, a complex neurodevelopmental service, and eating disorder outreach.

NHS England is undertaking a National Service Review of all Children and Young People’s Mental health (CYPMHS) Tier 4 services. This process is nationally driven and locally implemented, the focus being to redistribute the number of CYPMHS beds nationally to ensure the local need is met within each Specialised Commissioning Hub.

The North East and Cumbria Hub has reviewed local activity and demand and has developed an implementation plan which outlines the number and type of beds required in region to reduce the number of out-of-area admissions.

Running alongside the National Service Review are the two-year New Care Model Pilots. This is a nationally developed programme to transfer the budget for Tier 4 services to providers, enabling them to invest in the whole pathway, developing community services and reducing the reliance on in-patient beds. In the North East and Cumbria there are two pilots, which cover the whole hub. The providers are Northumberland Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. Both business cases focus on the development of 24-hour crisis services and improved community provision across both providers’ areas, reducing lengths of stay, number of out-of-area placements and reliance on in-patient beds. NHS England is working closely with the providers on the implementation and evaluation of these pilots.