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 help reduce the number of mental health conditions among young people in (a) Fylde constituency and (b) Lancashire.

The NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board is responsible for commissioning services to meet the mental health needs of young people in Fylde and across Lancashire.

Nationally, the Government is investing an extra £688 million this year to transform mental health services by hiring more staff, delivering more early interventions, and getting waiting lists down so young people can have the best possible start in life. We will fulfil our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 staff across child and adult mental health services by the end of this Parliament, and 6,700 of these extra workers have been recruited since July 2024.

We also want to intervene much earlier to support better outcomes for children and young people. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools to cover 100% of pupils by 2029/30 and by embedding mental health support in the new Young Futures hubs, to ensure there is no 'wrong front door' for people seeking help. At the end of March 2025, 55% of pupils and learners in Lancashire were covered by a mental health support team.

Additionally, we are continuing to provide top-up funding of £7 million to 24 existing early support hubs, including hubs in Chorley and Blackburn, to expand their services and to take part in an ongoing evaluation of these services in 2025/26. This funding will enable the supported hubs to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.