Mental Health Services: Young People
(asked on 16th October 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the accuracy of the data used by his Department to estimate the level of demand for mental health services by young people.
NHS Digital have two sources of information which can potentially be used to understand the need and demand for children and young people’s mental health services; the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS), and the Mental Health of Children and Young People survey series.
The most comprehensive assessment of the quality of MHSDS data is available within the 2016/17 NHS Digital Mental Health Bulletin publication available at the following link:
A limitation in understanding current demand and need for children and young people’s mental health services is the length of time since the last survey of children and young people’s mental health was completed in 2004. An updated prevalence survey of Children and Young People’s Mental Health will be published on 22 November 2018.