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 the effect of covid-19 restrictions on (a) the mental health of the population and (b) mental health care outcomes.

Public Health England publishes and updates the ‘COVID-19: mental health and wellbeing surveillance report’, which presents close to real-time surveillance on the mental health and wellbeing of the population in England during the pandemic and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-mental-health-and-wellbeing-surveillance-report

No specific assessment has been made of the effect of COVID-19 restrictions on mental health care outcomes.