Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of (a) trends in levels of (i) stress and (ii) burnout and (b) the potential impact of these on mental health.

Whilst no such assessment has been made, we are investing at least an additional £2.3 billion a year as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, to expand and transform National Health Service mental health services by 2023/24, compared to 2018/19. This will allow an extra two million people to get the NHS-funded mental health support they need.

NHS Talking Therapies, formerly the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, began in 2008 and has been expanding ever since, with over one million people now accessing NHS Talking Therapies services each year, and national waiting time standards consistently being delivered. NHS Talking Therapies offer National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approved psychological and talking therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, to help with common mental health problems like stress, anxiety and depression. People can self-refer directly to an NHS Talking Therapies service, or their general practice can refer them.

The Spring Budget 2023 contained a package of over £400 million to support the long-term sick and disabled to remain in, or enter, employment. This includes approximately £200 million for digital mental health, to modernise NHS Talking Therapies services in England, provide free access to wellness and clinical mental health apps to the population, and pilot cutting edge digital therapies.

The Autumn Statement in 2023 announced £592 million of new funding to continue the expansion of NHS Talking Therapies over the next five years. The funding is intended to both increase the number of people who can access the service by 384,000 over the next five years, and increase the average number of therapy sessions each person can access, to improve quality and outcomes. This will be underpinned by recruitment and retention initiatives to ensure sufficient capacity and skills mix in the NHS Talking Therapies workforce.

Access to good occupational health services is incredibly important, and NHS England published a strategy to grow occupational health and wellbeing, setting out a roadmap for the NHS and partners over the next five years to develop and invest in occupational health and wellbeing services.