Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of mental health patients admitted to out of area placements.

We are providing an additional £2.3 billion a year for mental health services by 2023/24 to expand adult community, crisis and acute mental health services to prevent avoidable deterioration and hospital admission and ensure sufficient mental health bed capacity. We are also investing £150 million in the mental health estate to increase system capacity and reduce pressures, including non-medical alternatives to admission, step-down community beds and supported living services. All systems with inappropriate out of area placements are required to refresh local plans to ensure these placements are eliminated as soon as reasonably possible.