Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for his work as Secretary of State. He was the longest-serving Secretary of State for Health ever, and he is passionately interested in this subject, too. Yes, we are on track—in fact, we are more than on track—to meet our objective of 25% of schools being covered by a school mental health support team by 2023-24.

The school mental health support teams have been launched in trailblazer areas, and I visited one a few weeks ago at Springwest Academy in Hounslow to see the amazing work the teams are doing with young children. The teams are teaching coping strategies and identifying mental health problems as they arise very early in life, which helps children to deal with those mental health problems now and into adulthood. We are on track and we hope to meet that objective.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

Last week it was reported that a 16-year-old boy in Milton Keynes tragically died by suicide. His referral to mental health services was rejected because he did not meet the threshold as his mental health problems were not deemed severe enough. This is deeply shocking, and it is clear that too many children are going without the support they need. Will the Minister now match Labour’s commitment to invest in children’s mental health services and to ensure that every secondary school has access to a trained mental health professional?

[Ms Dorries]

Obviously I cannot comment on an individual case, but what I can say is that the NICE guidelines on assessment for suicide were recently sent out to A&E departments to ensure that people who present with mental health problems are treated holistically and looked at in the round to assess whether they are a suicide risk.

We are investing £2.3 billion in mental health services—more than invested by any previous Government—and a huge amount of that is going towards children and young people. I hope cases such as the one highlighted by the hon. Lady will be a thing of the past. We have turned a corner. We are rolling out these mental health teams and, in the last year alone, 3,000 more people are working with young people and young adults. We have the new training scheme and the school mental health support teams. There is more to be done, but I hope such stories will become a thing of the past.[Official Report, 5 November 2019, Vol. 667, c. 8MC.]