Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will convene a working party to agree standards for the development of practice-based evidence systems for interventions for children with mental health and emotional welfare problems.

This question was answered on 30th April 2019
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for ensuring standards for health interventions. It provides national guidance, advice and published quality standards to improve health and social care, including on children’s mental health, for example, guidance on social and emotional wellbeing in primary education and quality standards on the promotion of health and wellbeing in under fives.

The proposals set out in our Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper will ensure that interventions delivered by new Mental Health Support Teams are in accordance with NICE guidance and advice. This will include appropriate individual and group clinical interventions for mild to moderate anxiety and low mood, social problems and mild conduct problems and behavioural intervention with parents.

The Department therefore has no plans to convene a working party.