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 improve mental health care for people bereaved as a result of covid-19.
The Government recognizes that this has been an incredibly difficult time to grieve, with the challenging, yet necessary, measures put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 affecting the complexity of grief for many people.
Since March 2020, the Government has given £10.2 million to mental health charities, including bereavement support charities, to support adults and children struggling with their mental wellbeing due to the impact of covid-19. We have also published our Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, backed by a one-off targeted investment of £500 million, to ensure that we have the right support in place this year.
A wide range of support continues to be available for the bereaved, and we will continue to work closely with bereavement services to assess how further support can be provided.