Children and Young People: Mental Health Services

(asked on 15th January 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of any additional resources required to deliver an integrated care approach for 0-25 year olds with mental health problems across health, social care, education and the voluntary sector as outlined in the the NHS long-term plan.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 21st January 2019

The Government is taking steps to support greater integration of care to make the best use of existing resources, including the significant additional funding for children and young people’s mental health that NHS England will make available under its Long Term Plan.

The Government has already introduced requirements under special educational needs and disability (SEND) legislation for joint commissioning across education, health and social care. The Department and NHS England ran a training pilot designed to build links between schools and colleges and NHS services, which will be rolled out across England starting later this year. The Department is coordinating work with the higher education sector to improve support for students as they move to university.

The priority given to 0-25 mental health services under the Long Term Plan has the potential to support this work. In particular, it can allow greater continuity of support for vulnerable children for whom other support already extends beyond 18, and for university students.

Local decision making is important to ensure this change supports the effective use of resources. The additional £1.4 billion made available to develop capacity and capability across the system from 2015-20 has already started to result in increased provision. The funding is linked to local transformation plans, drawn up by clinical commissioning groups with other local partners, which are intended to cover the all provision from prevention to specialist services.

The introduction of new mental health support teams linked to schools and colleges will be an important part of developing collaboration between education and health services. These teams will be based in and near schools and colleges and make links to other services, including social care and the voluntary sector. The first 25 trailblazer areas will be fully operational by the end of 2019.

Reticulating Splines