Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps the Department has taken to reduce the average waiting time was for accessing NHS mental health services in the West Midlands.

In the West Midlands, the Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has received additional funding for mental health services during 2021/22. National planning guidance sets out the deliverables which are expected will be achieved with this funding and some of these relate to further improving access and reducing waiting times for patients.

Birmingham and Solihull CCG have undertaken modelling work to help understand and plan for an increase in demand for services to ensure that waiting times are maintained or improved.