Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of figures recently released by NHS Digital, what action they are taking in response to the rising number of children being admitted to hospital suffering from anxiety.

Children and young people’s mental health is a priority area for this Government. We are committed to delivering the vision set out in the Future in Mind report, published in March 2015, which established a clear and powerful consensus about change across the whole system, including health, justice, social care and education.

This Government will drive forward the transformation of children and young people’s mental health services to improve access and make services more widely available across the country so that where possible children can access support locally. In total the Government has made available an additional £1.4 billion over the course of this Parliament to support significant transformation in children and young people’s mental health so that there is easy access to the right support from the right service when it is needed. This includes implementing clear evidence based pathways for community-based care to avoid unnecessary admissions to inpatient care.