Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what training NHS staff receive on supporting children with oppositional defiant disorder.

Individual employers are responsible for ensuring their staff are trained and competent to carry out their role. The standard of training for health care professionals is the responsibility of respective independent statutory regulatory bodies who set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses. It is also the responsibility of higher education institutions to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators’ outcome standards.

Whilst not all curricula may necessarily highlight a specific condition, they all emphasise the skills and approaches a healthcare practitioner must develop to ensure accurate and timely diagnoses and treatment plans for their patients, including to support children with oppositional defiant disorder where appropriate.