Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education to ensure schools receive adequate resources and funding for early access mental health support.

Ministers are in regular contact with their counterparts in the Department for Education about how best to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. The Government is investigating the early access model of support: there are currently around 60 ‘early support hubs’ in England that feature early intervention and prevention services. They are locally designed and funded and often provide several different services. Clinical commissioning groups and local authorities work with local partners to understand local needs and commission services on that basis.

Alongside the additional investment in children and young people’s mental health services outlined in the NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan 2019/20 – 2023/24, we are making an additional £79 million available in this financial year, which will be used to significantly expand children’s and young people’s mental health services including accelerating the coverage of mental health support teams providing early support in schools and colleges. £15 million is to be invested in local authority areas in the most deprived parts of the country to help stimulate and boost prevention and early intervention services to support those hardest hit by the pandemic, including families, children and young people, and ethnic minority groups.