Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of children and young people presenting to community-based mental health services started to receive help within four weeks of referral in each of the last five years for which data are available.

This information is not collected centrally at present as national access and waiting times standards for these services in England has not yet been defined or set.

We are working with NHS England on the introduction of new waiting time standards for both children and young people’s community-based mental health services and urgent referrals across all ages to community-based mental health crisis services, as part of its clinically led review of National Health Service access standards. A date for their introduction has not yet been set.