Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government has taken to understand the economics of preventing mental health problems in order to determine possible savings to the NHS and across Government departments.

In 2017 we published ‘Commissioning Cost-Effective Services for Promotion of Mental Health and Wellbeing and Prevention of Mental Ill-Health’, which outlined interventions and approaches which demonstrate efficacy and a return on investment for health and social care services and providers.

We have been working with other Government Departments, including HM Treasury and using stakeholder evidence to understand the economic cost of mental health problems. The call for evidence launched earlier this year aims to understand which Government actions can support mental health, wellbeing and suicide prevention.