Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department’s new strategy based on prevention will aim to prevent the onset of mental health disabilities.

The Government’s vision document, ‘Prevention is better than cure’, sets out our ambition to put prevention at the heart of health and social care in England. This includes both physical and mental health. However, there are already a number of measures in place or being planned to prevent the onset of mental health difficulties, and to support recovery for those who have experienced such difficulties, including introducing an access target for the service called 'Early Intervention in Psychosis' to help people recover after their first psychotic episode and prevent the condition from worsening in the future, and the range commitments outlined in the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper.

We will be publishing a Green Paper in 2019 which will set out our further plans on prevention in greater detail.