Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve early intervention for mental health conditions in working-age adults.

The £795 million of additional funding announced in the Autumn Statement will see thousands of working-age adults with mental ill health helped back into work over the next five years, keeping them out of poverty, improving their wellbeing, and raising their living standards.

This will increase the number of sessions per course of Talking Therapies treatment, to tackle the root causes of common mental health conditions like anxiety and depression and to broaden access, leading to an expected additional 384,000 people completing a course of treatment by 2028/29.

The investment will also fund an additional 100,000 Individual Placement and Support places over five years, which will help people with severe mental illness gain and retain paid employment.

Between 2019 and 2022, total number of NHS Talking Therapies staff across England, including clinical and non-clinical, has risen by 38%. NHS England has published a positive practice guide for NHS Talking Therapies staff working with those from black and ethnic minority groups, which is helping providers take appropriate action to ensure that communities have equality of access to NHS Talking Therapies