Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that children who enter the care system have the clinical mental health support they need (a) when entering and (b) throughout their time in that system.

The Department for Health and Social Care and the Department for Education have published statutory guidance for local authorities, integrated commissioning boards (ICBs) and NHS England, Promoting the health and wellbeing of looked after children.

The guidance is clear that local authorities, ICBs and NHS England need to reflect the high level of mental health needs amongst looked after children in their strategic planning of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). They should ensure that CAMHS and other services provide targeted and dedicated support to looked-after children according to need. This could include a dedicated team or seconding a CAMHS professional into a looked-after children multi-agency team. Professionals need to work together with the child to assess and meet their mental health needs in a tailored way. The guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/promoting-the-health-and-wellbeing-of-looked-after-children--2.

We are supporting ICBs to expand mental health services through the NHS Long Term Plan, which commits to increasing investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24. As part of this investment, an additional 345,000 children and young people, including cared for children, will be able to access National Health Service funded mental health support.

We also provided an additional £79 million for 2021/22 to allow around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services.