Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to reduce the incidence of self-harm.

Self-harm is a symptom of serious emotional distress which must be acted upon to ensure people get the help they need.

The Department funds the multicentre study of self-harm, which provides monitoring data on self-harm, and underpins knowledge about self-harm in England. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on the short-term and longer term management of self-harm cite many outputs from the study.

Self-harm can occur at any age but is most common in adolescence and young adulthood. While many acts of self-harm do not come to the attention of healthcare services, where they do, it is generally at a point of crisis.

We asked the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to investigate people’s experiences of help, care and support during a mental health crisis. The CQC’s report makes it clear that there is still more to do to make sure everyone is treated compassionately in the right place and at the right time. The CQC highlighted that staff attitudes were not always helpful, particularly where people were repeatedly presenting in crisis with self-harm, and that this has implications for risks of self-harm when people are not seen quickly or compassionately enough to stop crises from escalating.

We have increased investment in mental health. Spending on mental health was estimated to increase by £302 million in 2014/15, with total mental health spending rising from £11.362 billion in 2013/14 to £11.664 billion planned in 2014/15, an increase of 0.6% in real terms. We have also introduced the first treatment targets to make sure people get the prompt support they need and mental health is treated on the same terms as physical health.

This Government is committed to making children and young people’s mental health a high priority. The Children and Young People's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme is being expanded to cover children and young people across England by 2018 and include additional areas of clinical practice. This will involve additional clinical staff being trained in the most effective evidence based treatment for self-harm, depression and anxiety.