Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate his Department has made of the adequacy of waiting times for talking therapies in (a) Slough, (b) Berkshire and (c) England.

The latest NHS Talking Therapies data for England show that as of December 2024, 91.2% of people completing treatment waited less than six weeks for their first appointment, against a target of 75%. Additionally, 98.4% of people completing treatment waited less than 18 weeks, against a target of 95%.

Waiting times data for NHS Talking Therapies are not held at constituency or county level but are available at integrated care board (ICB) level through the NHS Mental Health Dashboard, which is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/nhs-mental-health-dashboard/

Despite the challenging fiscal environment, the Government has chosen to prioritise the funding to deliver expansions of NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement & Support schemes, demonstrating our commitment to addressing the root cause of mental health issues and providing support for people with severe mental illness to contribute to the economy by remaining in or returning to work.