Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS report entitled Stepping forward to 2021, the mental health workforce plan for England, published in July 2017, what assessment his Department has made of the progress made by (a) Health Education England and (b) the partners of that organisation on meeting the target of recruiting 30 consultant psychiatrists for community eating disorder services for children and young people by 2020-2021.

The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health set out the improvements expected in mental health services by 2021. This is underpinned by the report Stepping Forward to 2021 – the mental health workforce plan for England.

As at November 2019, there are 661 consultants working in child and adolescent psychiatry¹ this is 33 (or 5.3%) more than in 2010. Data are not collected on the number of consultant psychiatrists working within children and young people’s eating disorder services.

Through their program of work, Enhancing Junior Doctors Working Lives, Health Education England (HEE) is promoting the benefits of psychiatry training. HEE has also increased the number of Psychiatry placements available for junior doctors undertaking foundation training.

Note:

¹Data taken from NHS Hospital and Community Health (HCHS) data set.