Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the finding of the Disabled Children’s Partnership report, Then There Was Silence, published 10 September 2021, that urgent referrals for children’s mental health services, such as serious self-harm or suicide attempts, increased by 60 per cent in the covid-19 pandemic, what fiscal steps he plans to take to ensure that the mental health of disabled children is supported.

While we have made no specific financial provision for this group of patients, on 5 March we announced an additional £79 million funding that will be used to significantly expand children’s mental health services in this financial year. This will allow around 22,500 more children and young people, including those with disabilities, to access community health services and 2,000 more to access eating disorder services. It will also allow a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

We also remain committed to the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan to invest at least an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24. This will enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 more children and young people, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.