Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to improve support for children and young people with mental health issues.

Expanding access to children’s mental health services is a priority for this Government. In 2017/18, around 30.5% of children and young people then estimated to have a mental health condition were able to benefit from treatment and support, up from an estimated 25% two years earlier.

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in 2016, committed that, by 2020/21, at least an additional 70,000 children and young people each year will receive treatment; that there is a mental health crisis response that meets the needs of under 18 year olds; and that we will achieve a target of 95% of children and young people with eating disorders accessing treatment within one week for urgent cases, and four weeks for routine cases. We are providing an additional £1.4 billion to improve specialist children and young people’s mental health services between 2015-21.

On top of those commitments, the NHS Long Term Plan, published in January 2019, set an ambitious goal of an extra 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 (in addition to the 70,000 children referred to above) receiving support via NHS-funded mental health services by 2023/24; that there will be 24/7 mental health crisis provision for children and young people; and that there will be a comprehensive offer for 0-25 year olds that reaches across mental health services for children, young people and adults. NHS England has also published its Mental Health Implementation Plan in July 2019, setting out its plans for delivering its Long Term Plan goals.

Mental health services will grow faster than the overall National Health Service budget, with a ringfenced investment worth at least £2.3 billion a year for mental health services by 2023/24. Children and young people’s mental health services will grow faster than both overall NHS funding and total mental health spending.

We are making good progress towards our goals. In December 2018 we announced the first 25 trailblazer sites that will provide new school-based mental health support teams for those with mild to moderate mental health issues, and which will be operational by the end of this year. On 12 July 2019, NHS England announced that more mental health support teams are to be set up in 57 areas and will be operational by the end of 2020. We are trialling a four-week waiting time standard in 12 of the trailblazer sites, ahead of introducing new national waiting time standards for all children and young people who need specialist mental health services.