Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help improve mental health services in Southport constituency.

Between 2018/19 and 2023/24, the National Health Service increased spending on mental health services in England by £4.7 billion in cash terms, compared to the target of £3.4 billion set out at the time of the NHS Long Term Plan. All integrated care boards, including Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board, are also on track to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2023/24 by increasing their investment in mental health services, in line with their overall increase in funding for the year.

Almost £16 billion was invested in mental health in 2022/23, enabling over 3.6 million people, including those in the Southport constituency, to be in contact with mental health services, a 10% increase on the previous year.

We have also made positive progress on our ambition to grow the mental health workforce by an extra 27,000 staff between 2019/20 and 2023/24. We delivered three quarters of this, approximately 20,800, by December 2023, with further growth expected to have been achieved once the full year figures for 2023/24 are available.