Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the average waiting time for a mental health assessment and therapy in (a) Coventry South borough and (b) West Midlands in each of the last three years.

The Government is committed to reducing waiting times for mental health therapies across England. Performance against Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) waiting time standards continues to improve and we are consistently exceeding the targets. According to the 2016-17 Improving Access to Psychological Therapies annual report, 98.2% of those people completing treatment waited less than 18 weeks for their treatment to start in England against a target of 95% and 87.5% of people completing treatment waited less than six weeks against a target of 75%.

Source: NHS Digital (February 2018) Psychological Therapies: Annual Report on the use of IAPT services - England, 2016-17. http://www.digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB30232

Data is presented in the attached table.