Mental Health Services: Children and Young People
(asked on 20th November 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time was for a referral to child and adolescent mental health services in (a) Lewisham Deptford constituency, (b) London and (c) England in the latest period for which data is available.
We are investing at least £2.3 billion of additional funding a year by March 2024 compared to 2018/19 to expand and transform mental health services in England so that two million more people, including 345,000 children and young people, can get the mental health support they need.
Our record investment in mental health has seen spending on children and young people’s mental health services increase from £841 million in 2019/20 to just over £1 billion in 2022/23.
Information on the average waiting time1 for a referral to child and adolescent mental health services for the reporting period July to September 2023 is in the following table:
Information is not available at constituency level.
Area | Median waiting time between referral start date and first contact in days for referrals for under 18s supported through NHS funded mental health with a first contact in the reporting period | Median waiting time between referral start date and first contact in days for referrals for under 18s supported through NHS funded mental health still waiting for a first contact and still waiting at the end of the reporting period |
England | 19 | 170 |
London2 | 23 | 131 |
Lewisham local authority | 60 | 185 |
Source: Mental Health Services Data Set, NHS England
1 The wait time in days is calculated as the difference between the date the referral was made to the date the patient attended their first contact in relation to the referral. The information includes people with an open referral for suspected autism and anyone with a referral that was either discharged during the reporting period or has no discharge date submitted regardless of whether they had a first care contact during the year or not.
2 The following local authorities have been included in the London grouping: Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, City of London, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth and Westminster.