Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his department are taking to ensure people have access to adequate counselling support for disability diagnoses.

We want disabled people’s access to, and experience of, healthcare services to be equitable, effective, and responsive to their needs.

More people, including those experiencing depression and anxiety associated with a disability, now have better access to counselling support provided through NHS Talking Therapies services. We have increased the number of therapy sessions so that more than 670,000 people completed a course of treatment last year, compared to 567,000 in 2016/17.

We plan to expand NHS Talking Therapies still further so that 915,000 people complete a course of treatment by March 2029, with improved effectiveness and quality of services.