Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support people whose mental health has deteriorated as a result of (a) the covid-19 outbreak and (b) having contracted long covid.

We published ‘COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing recovery action plan’, to ensure that we have the right support in place this year to respond to the impact of the pandemic on mental health and those affected by ‘long’ COVID-19.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s ‘Long COVID: the NHS plan for 2021/22’ states that those with ‘long’ COVID-19 who are experiencing persistent mental health problems such as depression, anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be considered for referral to an Improving Access to Psychological Therapy service. Referral into other specialist mental health services should be considered where adults or children and young people present with serious mental illness. Psychologists should be part of the multidisciplinary rehabilitation team, providing individual and group input and advice to other staff.