Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of demand for NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

We are working with NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England and others to gather evidence and assess the potential longer-term mental health impacts of COVID-19 and plan for how to support the public’s mental health and wellbeing throughout the coming weeks and months.

The most recent NHS Digital Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics publication shows that there were 309,961 people in contact with children and young people’s mental health services in December 2020 compared to 235,706 in December 2019.

Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics can be found at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-services-monthly-statistics.