Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he has taken to reduce the amount of time that young people and children wait for mental health support from a referral to the beginning of treatment.

We are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year to enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 children and young people, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support by 2023/24. We have made a further £500 million available in 2021/22, which includes £79 million to ensure that approximately 22,500 more children and young people can access community mental health services. A further 2,000 children and young people will be able to access eating disorder services and we are accelerating the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on a proposed waiting time standard for children and young people presenting to community-based mental health services, to start to receive care within four weeks from referral. The consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement expect to publish the response to the consultation in due course.