Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Siobhain McDonagh

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

We know that the prevalence of children and young people with a mental health condition has increased—in some cases, it has increased massively. That is why we remain committed to increasing investment through the long-term plan. Also, we have consulted on the potential to introduce five new waiting times standards, including for children and young people and their families and carers presenting to community-based mental health services. In addition, NHS England and NHS Improvement have announced an additional £40 million to address the impact of covid on children and young people’s mental health, including for eating disorders. Since 2014, extra funding has been going into children and young people’s community eating disorder services every year, but we know that we have more to do. This extra funding will enhance the development of more than 70 new and improved community eating disorder teams, but there is no doubt that there is much to catch up on. We are also introducing services into schools for young people.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

When the chief inspector of hospitals placed St George’s in Tooting into special measures, he warned that the

“emergency department was not large enough for the number of patients that passed through it and privacy and dignity were compromised.”

Given the report by the British Red Cross in this morning’s edition of The Times highlighting the causal link between A&E attendance and deprivation, does the Minister understand the further huge impact that moving acute services from St Helier to wealthy, healthy Belmont will have on A&E attendances at St George’s?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Siobhain McDonagh

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course we have taken very seriously the issue of ensuring that children can get to school and colleges; there has been not only an extra £2 billion in funding to help people to walk to school and to make it safe for them to get to school, but £44 million for dedicated transport. So the Treasury is putting a lot of investment into this area.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

What estimate he has made of the number of school children that did not have access to (a) a laptop or (b) another device to facilitate home learning when schools were closed during the covid-19 lockdown.