Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the current waiting times for CAMHS for children in (a) Darlington, (b) the North East and (c) England; and what steps she is taking to reduce those waiting times.

Since 2018, we have invested an extra £2.3 billion a year to expand mental health services in England, with the aim of enabling two million more people, including 345,000 more children and young people to access mental health support.

We are rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges. These now cover around 35% of pupils, and is expected to reach 50% of pupils by March 2025. NHS England is also developing a new waiting time standard for children and their families to start to receive community-based mental health care within four weeks from referral.

Whilst the relevant data is not available at a constituency level, the following table shows the number of referrals for children and young people aged under 18 years old, supported through National Health Service-funded mental health, and waiting times for first contact between September and November 2023 for NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB), North East and Yorkshire Commissioning Region, and England:

Source: Mental Health Services Data Set, NHS England

Notes:

1. These metrics are in line with the proposed new waiting time standards for mental health but are not yet associated with a target, due to significant data quality concerns on the part of NHS England.
2. The 90th percentile waiting time was 174 days meaning 10% of children and young people who received a first contact in this period waited over 174 days.