Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of interim support available to children waiting for access to CAMHS support.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has made no assessment of the adequacy of access to child and adolescent mental health services for children in the Slough constituency. The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including for children and young people’s mental health services in the Slough constituency.
As prioritised in our Medium-Term Planning Framework, we are taking action to reduce the longest waits for specialist mental health support, tackling regional disparities, and expanding access, thereby making services more productive so children and young people spend less time waiting for the treatment they need.
We are also accelerating the rollout of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. As part of this, we are investing an additional £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more effective support to young people with complex needs, such as trauma, neurodivergence, and disordered eating. An additional 900,000 children and young people had access by this spring, which means that 60% of all pupils will have access to this early support at school, up from 44% in spring 2024.
More widely, we are, rolling out Young Futures Hubs. The Government’s first 50 Young Futures Hubs will bring together services at a local level to support children and young people, helping to ensure that young people can access early advice and wellbeing intervention. We will work to ensure there is no wrong door for young people who need support with their mental health.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how students and bereaved families are being involved in the work of the Implementation Taskforce on student mental health and suicide prevention.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Students and bereaved families are directly shaping the work of the higher education mental health implementation taskforce. Representatives of the LEARN network sit on the taskforce and have played a key role in agreeing its priorities and work strands, ensuring lived experience insight informs all outputs. The taskforce also includes formal student representation via the National Union of Students, and other members such as Student Minds also ensure that student voice and sector expertise underpin their programme of work.
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to conduct a post-implementation review of the potential impact of the early waves of deployment of Mental Health Support Teams on schools.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has no plans to conduct a post-implementation review of the potential impact of the early waves of deployment of Mental Health Support Teams on schools.
In July 2025, the National Children’s Bureau published an independent Mental Health Support Teams evaluation report, Evaluating the implementation of the Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision Green Paper programme. The impacts and other details are set out in the report, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Damian Hinds (Conservative - East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is planning to take to ensure the exchange of best practice among Healthcare Trusts from their deployment of Mental Health Support Teams.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care, along with NHS England and the Department for Education, jointly provide guidance and support to providers and commissioners of Mental Health Support Teams (MHST). This includes both the implementation of new teams and improving the quality and effectiveness of existing teams.
A national MHST Community of Practice has also been established, hosted by NHS England, with examples of best practice routinely made available to providers and commissioners.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what oversight exists for diagnostic standards in private mental health services, in particular online assessment platforms.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Clinicians delivering diagnoses are professionally regulated by bodies such as the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, and the Health and Care Professions Council, whose standards apply equally to private practice.
For online assessment platforms specifically, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) operates an early value assessment (EVA) process that conditionally recognises some digital healthcare technologies while further evidence is generated. These evaluations draw on a combination of research evidence and expert review of relevance and potential impact. NICE EVAs have been published for several tools that provide mental health pre-assessment information gathering or deliver digitally enabled therapies. These can be found on the NICE website. NICE EVAs are specifically intended to support early adoption within National Health Service commissioned services, but private providers may choose to use the EVA findings as a benchmark for decisions.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 30 January (HL14009), what assessment they have made of whether increased spending allocation to tacking mental health care results in a reduction in prevalence of mental health conditions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We know that the nation’s mental health has deteriorated over the last decade. The Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey 2023/24 shows that the proportion of 16 to 64 year olds with a common mental health condition increased from 17.6% in 2007 and 18.9% in 2014, to 22.6% in 2023/24.
Total mental health spending for 2025/26 is expected to amount to £15.6 billion, which is a significant increase of £688 million compared to the previous financial year. However, demand has outstripped supply as a result of rising prevalence. That is why we have launched the independent review into prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism. The review will look at prevalence, early intervention and treatment, and the current challenges facing clinical services.
The Government has already taken significant steps to stabilise and improve National Health Service mental health services. This includes NHS Talking Therapies services, which provide evidence-based interventions recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. More than 670,000 people completed a course of treatment last year. We are expanding Talking Therapies services so that 915,000 people can complete a course of treatment by March 2029.
NHS Talking Therapies have a recovery target that at least 50% of people who complete treatment should move to recovery, which is generally met or close to being met. Information released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that completion of Talking Therapy treatment has a positive impact on pay and employment status. Further details are available on the ONS website.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of a respiratory modern service framework on winter pressures on the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Modern service frameworks will define an aspirational, long-term outcome goal for a major condition and then identify the best evidenced interventions and the support for delivery. Early priorities will include cardiovascular disease, severe mental illness, and the first ever service framework for frailty and dementia.
The Government will consider other long-term conditions for future waves of modern service frameworks, including respiratory conditions. The criteria for determining other conditions for future modern service frameworks will be based on where there is potential for rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. There has not, therefore, been a specific assessment made in relation to winter pressures.
NHS England, working with the Department, the UK Health Security Agency, and other partners, is taking action to reduce the impact of respiratory conditions on the National Health Service this winter. Further details of the actions being taken to reduce demand on acute services during winter is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of research by Velez et al entitled New-Onset Mental Illness Among Gestational Carriers, published on 25 July 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s (HFEA) Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee reviews the published evidence of health outcomes for those having fertility treatment, including surrogates. The last 10 years of evidence were reviewed in June 2025, and further information on the findings of this review can be found at the following link:
The study had not been published at the time of the review and will be included in the next review by the HFEA.
Asked by: Vikki Slade (Liberal Democrat - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 27 October 2025 to Question 82544 on Respiratory System: Health Services, if he will outline a timeline he expects to bring forward a Modern Service Framework for respiratory health.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Modern service frameworks (MSFs) will define an aspirational, long-term outcome goal for a major condition and then identify the best evidenced interventions and the support for delivery. Early priorities will include cardiovascular disease, severe mental illness, and the first ever service framework for frailty and dementia.
The Government will consider other long-term conditions for future waves of MSFs, including respiratory conditions. The criteria for determining other conditions for future MSFs will be based on where there is potential for rapid and significant improvements in the quality of care and productivity. After the initial wave of MSFs is complete, the National Quality Board will determine the conditions to prioritise for new MSFs as part of its work programme.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what evidence the Government has considered on whether the absence of a statutory duty of care contributes to inconsistent responses by universities to students at risk of harm.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has considered a wide range of evidence in assessing the factors that contribute to variation in how higher education (HE) providers support students at risk of harm. This includes official statistics, coroners’ Prevention of Future Deaths reports, and other case reviews that highlight issues with processes, communication and access to services relevant to consistency of support.
Our assessment has further drawn on extensive engagement with providers, students, bereaved families, mental health experts and sector leaders, including through provider surveys and the HE mental health implementation taskforce, where those with lived experience have shaped priorities and workstrands.
Last year, we also published the first ever national review of HE student suicide deaths, which analysed more than 160 serious incident reviews and identified operational issues such as information sharing, case management and staff training as key drivers of inconsistency. We are now working with the taskforce and the sector to embed the review’s recommendations and to strengthen monitoring and institutional accountability.