Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for CAMHS in Hornsey and Wood Green constituency.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population. We are supporting them 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 we expect an additional 345,000 children and young people, including in the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency, should be able to access National Health Service funded mental health support.

The NHS Long Term Plan also stated the aim of increasing the mental health workforce in England by an additional 27,000 professionals by 2023/24. NHS England and Health Education England are working with local integrated care boards to confirm plans for service models, supply, retention and recruitment until 2024.

NHS England has consulted on the potential to introduce five new waiting time standards as part of its clinically-led review of NHS access standards, including that children, young people and their families, presenting to community-based mental health services should start to receive care within four weeks from referral. As a first step, NHS England has recently shared and promoted guidance with its local system partners to consistently report waiting times to support the development of a baseline position.