Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the effectiveness of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

We remain committed to delivering the core proposals of the children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, including the introduction of senior leads in mental health and mental health support teams in schools and colleges, as well as the piloting of a four-week waiting time for specialist NHS services.

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health set a target of at least 35% of children and young people with a diagnosable mental health condition receiving treatment from an NHS-funded community mental health service by 2020/21. We are currently meeting this target with 36.8% of children and young people with such a need accessing treatment in 2019/20.