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 waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services.

We know children and young people are not receiving the mental health care they need and that waits for mental health services are too long across England. We are determined to change that as part of our shift to prevention and earlier intervention, and in line with our Plan for Change.

Nationally, the Government is providing £7 million of funding to extend support for 24 Early Support Hubs that have a track record of helping thousands of young people in their community. We will also provide access to a specialist mental health professional in every school in England, and roll out Young Futures Hubs to provide open access mental health support for children and young people.

In addition, we plan to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers across child and adult mental health services in England, to ease the pressure on the busy mental health services.