Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to increase spending on low-level mental health support for children to enable the provision of preventative and early intervention services for (a) depression, (b) anxiety, (c) eating disorders and (d) other such conditions.

Through the NHS Long Term Plan, the National Health Service has set a goal of an extra 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25, receiving support via NHS-funded mental health services by 2023/24. The National Health Service has also committed to funding for children and young people’s mental health services growing as a proportion of all mental health funding for the first time, which will itself grow faster than funding for the NHS overall.

The Long Term Plan committed at least a further £2.3 billion a year to mental health services by 2023/24 and the Government also pledged £1.25 billion by 2020 to support improvements in children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing for a wide range of mental health conditions, including depression and anxiety, along with £150 million for eating disorder services.

The National Implementation Framework, when published, will provide further information on how the commitments set out for children and young people’s mental health in the Long Term Plan will be implemented.

Our Green Paper ‘Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper’ also sets out how we plan to increase the availability of support for children and young people, by reaching them through schools or colleges.