Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in West Berkshire.

Expanding access to children’s mental health services nationally is a priority for this Government, and it is a core part of the NHS Long Term Plan. The National Health Service has set an ambitious goal of an extra 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 receiving support via NHS-funded mental health services and schools-based mental health support teams (MHSTs) by 2023/24.

MHSTs are a proposal of our Green Paper on improving children and young people’s mental health provision. We are trialling the proposals in trailblazer areas. The first 25 areas, announced in December 2018, are running the first wave of 59 MHSTs. West Berkshire is one of those 25 areas.

Twelve of the first trailblazer areas have also been chosen to pilot a four-week waiting time.

West Berkshire, Reading and Wokingham co-operate at local leadership level to support a shared children’s mental health Local Transformation Plan, which promotes resilience, and good mental health and wellbeing. It can be found at the following link:

www.berkshirewestccg.nhs.uk/about-us/how-we-work-with-others/the-local-transformation-plan