Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to improve the support available to mental health professionals to manage their own mental health.

The Government is committed to improving the support available to all employees, including mental health professionals to manage their own mental health.

For people working in mental health services, Health Education England published ‘Stepping Forward to 2020/21: Mental Health Workforce Plan for England’ in 2017. This included a commitment to provide supportive management for those working in high stress environments.

In the National Health Service as a whole, the Healthy Workforce Programme, established by NHS England in 2015, is encouraging NHS organisations to improve the health and wellbeing of its staff, including through rapid access to talking therapies.