Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper, published by his Department on 4 March 2016, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of the projection that it will take 10 years to roll out mental health support teams; and what assessment has he made of the potential effect that timescale would have on the children who will not have access to that support during that time.

As set out in the impact assessment which was published alongside the Green Paper, we have modelled a linear 10 year timeline to full rollout of the mental health support teams. However, this may be altered in the light of the evaluation of the trailblazers. This evaluation will inform the later phases of the national rollout.

The proposal to create new mental health support teams, comprising a sizeable new workforce, is ambitious. We want to learn what works best as we implement the proposals to ensure further roll-out is done as effectively as possible. While we roll out the mental health support teams, children and young people will continue to be able to access the wider offer of improved mental health services as set out in NHS England’s Five Year Forward View for Mental Health; the Green Paper forms one part of the wider transformation of services which is already underway.