Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to provide support to survivors of sexual assault in London when services are over-subscribed.

Allocations for Sexual Assault Referral Centres have increased this year. This has enabled NHS England to increase the number of specialists working across the London Havens, specialist centres supporting survivors of sexual assault in the London area. This includes an increase in counselling and therapy team capacity, and the creation of social work liaison posts.

Together with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, NHS England have been working on a Child House pilot. This is a new integrated health, social care and criminal justice service for child victims of sexual abuse in the north central London area. This service is expected to open in 2018. The pilot will evaluate whether the Child House model is effective in the London context and explore whether the model should be rolled out across the whole of London.