Mental Health Services: St Helens North

(asked on 10th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking as part of the NHS Long Term Plan to improve children’s mental health services in St Helens North constituency; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 15th January 2020

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to at least an additional 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 being able to access support via National Health Service-funded mental health services and school or college-based mental health support teams by 2023/24.

St Helens Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has advised that it is taking a borough-wide approach for children and young people’s mental health. As part of this, the CCG will fund a number of projects including:

- commissioning Kooth - an online provider that supplies advice, guidance, general support and online counselling for children and young people aged 11-25 years. This will go live in March 2020;

- extending the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies programme into additional schools in the borough; and

- a one-year pilot to enhance the crisis response service provision for children and young people with autism and/or learning disabilities.

In addition, the CCG has agreed to take part in the national Link programme, which brings together professionals from education and health in workshops to create closer working to help address the mental health needs of children and young people in the borough.

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