Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Debate between Lord Bishop of Newcastle and Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to improve children’s and young people’s access to mental health care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford) (Con)]

My Lords, the NHS is on track to meet the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health commitment that 70,000 more children and young people will access treatment each year by 2020-21. Under the NHS Long Term Plan, a further 345,000 children and young people will receive support by 2023-24. Our recent Green Paper sets out our plans to pilot a four-week waiting time for specialist NHS mental health services for children and young people.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her remarks and welcome the commitment to prioritising investment in mental health care for children and young people. However, data published by the NHS in November showed that only one in four young people with a mental health disorder accessed specialist mental health services in the previous year. I welcome plans from the Government to increase this figure to 100% within the decade, but given that three-quarters of children with a diagnosable mental health condition do not currently get access to the support they need, how will the Government act to help this generation of children who will have moved on to adult services before this rollout is complete?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for her very important question. We are coming from a low base in children’s and young people’s mental health services, and successive Governments have failed to prioritise these services as they should have. That is exactly why the long-term plan sets out our determination to address this—to ensure that all children get the care they need. With more money, more staff and more beds, there will be £2.3 billion a year more for this area by 2023-24, a figure that is growing faster than the rest of the NHS budget. It is why the NHS and HEE are targeting to recruit 8,000 more children’s and young people’s mental health staff, and why we are bringing in the first ever access and waiting services. I accept, however, that the pace at which this is going is frustrating, but it is important to understand the base from which we are coming.