Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the NHS can (a) tackle the needs of disabled children and (b) help those children to recover from the coivd-19 outbreak.

We are working with the Department for Education and NHS England and NHS Improvement to improve the provision of health services for disabled children. On 6 September 2021, we announced an additional £5.4 billion to support the COVID-19 response over the next six months, which includes £2 billion to tackle the elective backlog and reducing waiting times for patients, including disabled children.

We have also allocated £79 million to expand mental health services for children, including disabled children and £31 million to address particular challenges faced by individuals with a learning disability and autistic people, with £3 million for community respite services.