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 adequacy of community provision of mental health services to under-18s.

The Department keeps the mental health of children and young people and the services available for them, under continuous assessment through studies such as the Mental Health and Young People Survey 2017 and its follow up reports. The mental health services dataset indicates that 689,621 under 18 year olds were supported through at least one contact with National Health Service funded mental health services in the year up to July 2022.

The NHS Long Term plan commits to increasing investment into NHS mental health services in England by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 and aims for an additional 345,000 children and young people to be able to get the mental health support they need.

In recognition of the increased demand created by the COVID-19 pandemic, we invested an extra £79 million in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services, including enabling around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in 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 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issue. Mental health support teams now cover 26 per cent. of pupils, a year earlier than originally planned and this will increase to 399 teams, covering around 35 per cent. of pupils, by April 2023 with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.