Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure young people have timely access to mental health services.

Under the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion per year by March 2024 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.

We also provided an additional £500 million for 2021/22, targeting those groups whose mental health has been most affected by the pandemic, including children and young people. Within the £500 million, £79 million was invested to allow around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges. £13 million was invested to ensure young adults aged 18 to 25, including university students, were supported with tailored mental health support, helping bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.

In February, NHS England published the outcomes of its consultation on the potential to introduce five new access and waiting time standards for mental health services, including that children and young people should start to receive care within four weeks from referral, as part of its clinically led review of National Health Service access standards. We are now working with NHS England on the next steps.