Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
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 implications for his policies of the findings of the Education Policy Institute report, Access and waiting times in children and young people’s mental health services, published in September 2017, on the proportion of children referred to specialist mental health services who are being denied access to those services; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
We acknowledge the need for focus on early intervention in children and young people’s mental health services, as set out in the Education Policy Institute report. The additional £1.4 billion that the Government has made available to transform children and young people’s mental health services will ensure that an additional 70,000 children and young people per year will receive treatment from National Health Service specialist services by 2020. The recently published green paper on children and young people’s mental health also includes a proposal to trial a four week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services.
Asked by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Education Policy Institute’s report Access and Waiting Times in Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services, what steps he plans to take to reduce the variation in waiting times for mental health treatment across the country.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The recent Green Paper, ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’, includes a proposal to trial a four week waiting time for access to specialist National Health Service children and young people’s mental health services. New Mental Health Support Teams, a further announcement in the green paper, will also enable children and young people to access earlier help for emerging problems. Both approaches will be tested using trailblazer areas, operational from 2019, to understand what works.
Two waiting time standards applicable to children and young people’s mental health are already in place; the early intervention in psychosis standard is currently exceeding its target and the children’s eating disorder standard is on track to meet its target by 2020/21.