Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) availability and (b) quality of student (i) support and (ii) wellbeing services provided by universities.

It is a priority for the government that students are provided with the mental health support they need.

We are taking an approach based on three pillars:

• Funding vital services and innovative projects via the Office for Students. £15 million has been allocated this academic year to support students starting university for the first time and enable effective partnerships between higher education (HE) providers and local NHS services. £3.6 million was invested to launch Student Space in 2020. It has since provided nearly 300,000 students with free online mental health resources and confidential support.
• Spreading and implementing best practice consistently across providers.
• Clear responsibilities for providers and protection for students, with solutions developed by the Student Support Champion, Professor Edward Peck.

The department recently conducted research on the design and delivery of mental health and wellbeing services to meet the needs of their students. This found that 99% of HE institutions provided in-house self-help resources and 97% offered in-house psychological support for those experiencing poor mental health, either face-to-face or virtual contact with a counsellor[1]. It also found a substantial increase in the proportion of higher education institutions that now have a specific mental health and wellbeing strategy in place (two thirds in 2022 compared with just over a half in 2019) A link to the report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/mental-health-and-wellbeing-practices-in-higher-education.

While good progress has been made by the sector, the department is going further to protect students’ wellbeing. The department wants all universities to be adopting the Mental Health Charter and following the principles it sets out for a whole university approach to mental health. 61 universities are already part of the Charter Programme. The department wants students to have confidence in the support they will receive, whatever university they have chosen to study at. The department has set a target for all remaining universities to sign up to the Mental Health Charter Programme by September 2024.

To look at further improvements in student mental health support, the department has asked the Student Support Champion, Professor Edward Peck, to lead the HE Mental Health Implementation Taskforce. The taskforce will set strong, clear, and measurable targets for the sector. The taskforce will conclude its work with a final report in May 2024, having produced an interim plan by the end of 2023.

The department is confident the HE sector will rise to meet the challenge. If the response is not satisfactory, the department will go further, and ask the Office for Students to look carefully at the merits of a new registration condition on mental health.

[1] 53% of private providers and 93% of Further Education Colleges provided in house self-help resources and 53% and 85% respectively offered either face to face or virtual contact with a counsellor.