Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to promote mental health first aid.

The Department has committed to delivering mental health “first aid” training to a member of staff in all schools across England by the end of this Parliament.

The programme to deliver Youth Mental Health First Aid training to secondary school staff is in its second year of delivery. We have so far invested over £450,000 in the programme, and have delivered the training to staff in over 1,300 secondary schools. We expect to reach 2,000 schools by the end of 2018/19.

The Department has set aside a further £5 million to deliver mental health first aid and awareness training to a member of staff in all primary schools across England by the end of this Parliament.

In addition to this, the Department is working with Public Health England to launch a £15 million national campaign in autumn 2018 to train 1 million people in mental health awareness and first aid.