Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve mental health provision for (a) all and (b) secondary school aged children and young people.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits an additional £2.3 billion a year for the expansion and transformation of mental health services in England by 2023/24 so that an additional two million people, including 345,000 children and young people, can get the National Health Service funded mental health support that they need.

We also provided an additional £500 million to further expand mental health services in the 2021/22 financial year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This included £79 million, which allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and accelerated the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

There are currently 287 mental health support teams in place in around 4,700 primary and secondary schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. Over 500 mental health support teams are planned to be up and running by 2024.

We also launched a campaign through the NHS Every Mind Matters website to raise awareness of the guidance and tools available to support children and young people’s mental wellbeing.

Through the new mandatory health education curriculum, pupils are taught how to recognise the early signs of mental wellbeing concerns, including common types of mental ill health, where and how to seek support and whom they should speak to in school if they’re worried about their own or someone else’s mental wellbeing.