Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.

We are investing an additional £2.3 billion per year by March 2024 to enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 children and young people, and including those in the Enfield area and across London more widely, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.

We also provided an additional £500 million for 2021/22, targeting those groups whose mental health has been most affected by the pandemic including children and young people. Within the £500 million, £79 million was invested to allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.  £13 million was invested to ensure young adults aged 18 to 25, including university students, are supported with tailored mental health support, helping bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.

This additional funding has accelerated coverage of mental health support teams across the country. As of spring 2022, 287 mental health support teams were in place in 4,700 schools and colleges, covering 26% of pupils in England. This means that we achieved 25% coverage a year earlier than planned.

There are now almost 400 mental health support teams in place, covering over 3 million children or around 35% of pupils in schools and colleges, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.

Over 10,000 schools and colleges have trained a senior mental health lead, including more than six in ten state-funded secondary schools in England.

In February, NHS England published the outcomes of its consultation on the potential to introduce five new access and waiting time standards for mental health services, including that children and young people should start to receive care within four weeks from referral, as part of its clinically-led review of National Health Service access standards. We are now working with NHS England on the next steps.