Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the NHS workforce is located within (a) mental health services and (b) young people’s mental health services.

NHS Digital published the new mental health workforce definition on 21 March 2019.

As at October 2019, the latest available data there were 1,023 child and adolescent psychiatrists in National Health Service trusts and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), 29 (3%) more since October 2014, full time equivalent (FTE).

As at September 2019, the latest available data there were 1,114,473 people working in NHS trusts and CCGs of which 114,539 (10.3%) people work in mental health, FTE.

NHS Digital’s mental health workforce data cannot be broken down into children’s posts because there is not an agreed definition of young people’s mental health services. For example a single psychiatrist may be providing mental health services to children and adults.