Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to implement the recommendations for trauma-focussed care outlined in the report Future in Mind.

It is important that awareness of trauma (from abuse or neglect) and the impact it can have on children and young people’s mental health is raised across the workforce and that there is clarity on roles and responsibilities. The Department has asked that Health Education England (HEE) and NHS England work together to consider the training required for the health and wider children’s workforce to become more trauma aware, building this into HEE’s work programme.

Routine Enquiry (asking about experience of trauma at every appropriate health appointment for over 16 year olds) and sensitive enquiry in all children and young people’s services (which was proposed in Future in Mind) will be tested in key services shortly. However, there is still work to do to make sure we reach out to all parts of the workforce who may see the presentation of trauma in the children that they work with. Routine and sensitive enquiry by frontline health professionals such as general practitioners and mental health professionals is an important starting point, but it will be just as important to use those working in schools and the community to raise awareness more broadly and initiate learning about trauma and its impact on mental health.