Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of trends in the number of children referred for mental health care.

We are committed to increasing investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024 and have set out our aim in the NHS Long Term Plan for an additional 345,000 children and young people to be able to get the mental health support they need. We therefore expect to see referrals rise as services expand their capacity.

As part of this expansion, we are rolling out mental health support teams in schools and colleges. As of spring 2022 there were 287 mental health support teams in place in over 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. Mental health support teams now cover 26% of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned, and this should have increased to 399 teams in April 2023, expected to cover around 35% of pupils, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.

In recognition of the rising demand created by the pandemic, we invested £79 million extra in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services, including enabling at least 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services. NHS England also announced a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the COVID-19 impact on children and young people’s mental health.