Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to ensure that children and young people have access to appropriate mental health treatment.

We have made an additional £1.4 billion available over the course of 2015/16 - 2020/21 to transform services and ensure access to specialist mental health services for an additional 70,000 children and young people a year by 2020/21.

We have also introduced two waiting time standards for children and young people. The first is for 95% of children (up to 19 years old) with eating disorders to receive treatment within a week for urgent cases (and four weeks for routine cases). The second is for 50% of patients (of all ages) experiencing a first episode of psychosis to receive treatment within two weeks of referral. We are currently exceeding or on track to meet these waiting time standards.

The recent Green Paper, ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’, published by the Department for Health and Social Care and the Department for Education, announced the creation of new Mental Health Support Teams. These teams will deliver mental health interventions for those with mild to moderate needs in or close to schools and colleges (and refer those with more severe needs on to specialist services). The Green Paper also announced the piloting of a four week waiting time to improve access to National Health Service mental health services, which we will roll out in a number of trailblazer areas alongside the support teams. The Green Paper is supported by an additional £300 million.

We will also ensure that at least one teacher in every primary and secondary school will receive mental health awareness training to enable school staff to spot common signs of mental health issues, and to help children and young people receive appropriate support.