Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to reduce patient waiting lists for mental health services in England.

The Government published Achieving Better Access to Mental Health Services by 2020 in autumn 2014.

The publication was backed by -

- £80 million of funding in 2015-16 to deliver:

­ Treatment within six weeks for 75% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, with 95% of people being treated within 18 weeks (introduced in April 2015); and

­ Treatment within two weeks for more than 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis (introduced in April 2016).

The National Health Service is currently exceeding its mental health access standards.

For IAPT, as at November 2017, of those people completing treatment, 89.1% of people waited less than six weeks (exceeding the 75% target) and of those people completing treatment, 98.8% of people waited less than 18 weeks (exceeding the 95% target).

For Early Intervention in Psychosis, as at January 2017, the NHS is exceeding the target with 69.3% of patients starting treatment within two weeks.

For Eating Disorders – The Department is investing £30 million a year to 2020 to support clinical commissioning groups in developing and enhancing eating disorder services for children and young people so that by 2020/21, 95% of young people in need of an eating disorders service will be seen within four weeks, and one week in urgent cases. The NHS is on track to meet this standard. As at Q3 (October-December 2017) 76.9% of patients started urgent treatment within one week and 83.1% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks.