Children’s Mental Health

Jack Brereton Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

I am pleased to contribute to this important debate on young people’s mental health. The pandemic has had a significant impact on many young people, and I know that our schools and colleges have done huge amounts to support their students through this period. I have been discussing mental health with many of them recently, and only last week I discussed it with the Minister for Care and Mental Health.



This work must start from an early age, and I particularly welcome the work being done in Stoke-on-Trent and nationally through the early years healthy development review. As a city, we must do more to build on the support for the most vulnerable families to ensure that every young person has the best start in life and can achieve their full potential. I very much hope that the city council is successful in securing funding for family hubs in Stoke-on-Trent, as that investment is vital. Importantly, the council recognises that those services must reach out to the families and children who need the support most—not those who are already engaged but those in greatest need of support and who are often the hardest to reach. These are the lessons we must learn if we are to see genuine improvements in levelling up the life chances and achievements of our young people.

It is particularly vital that we continue to improve support for mental health in schools and colleges, including the development of mental health support teams in all education settings. The 2017 Green Paper suggested that that was to be fully rolled out over six years, which seems a long time. We have ambitions to reach the target sooner, and I recognise the challenges with significantly ramping up recruitment and increasing the very specialist skills in this field. However, it is important that young people who need this support get it now.

Not enough young people are getting treatment as quickly as needed, which I know the Government are determined to address. It is only by acting earlier and being more preventive that we will stop more serious mental health issues developing in the longer term. I was pleased to hear from the Minister last week that we are already ahead of schedule in the roll-out to education settings, and I hope that trend continues to accelerate. In Stoke-on-Trent, 22% of schools now have in-school mental health support teams, with the ambition to increase this significantly over the next two years.

I commend our local schools and mental health staff at North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust for their dedicated work in supporting our young people. The increasing challenges they face are significant, with demand for mental health support for our young people surging by some 40% across north Staffordshire during the pandemic. It is particularly concerning that the demand for autism assessments has been double the capacity over the last year. I am pleased that the Government are taking serious action, with the £500 million mental health recovery action plan put in place to help those most impacted by the pandemic. This builds on the additional £2.3 billion committed to mental health through the NHS long-term plan.

Our local mental health services are doing more to help address these issues, including by increasing training and mentoring in schools to help staff better support young people, and by growing capacity further to better meet the increased demand and pressures on these services. This follows the record £15 million investment we secured to improve mental health facilities in Stoke-on-Trent, including a £1.3 million investment in new CAMHS intensive-support services.

As we move towards more integrated healthcare models with the development of integrated care systems, we must continue to address these issues and better integrate mental health services with other public sector and third sector services.