Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what (a) the average waiting time is for mental health services and what plans he has in place to reduce those times.

The data is not held in the format requested as a national access and waiting times standard for National Health Service mental health services has not yet been defined.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to invest at least an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24. This increased investment will ensure that an additional 345,000 children and young people and 380,000 more adults will have timely access to NHS-funded mental health services. We published our COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing recovery action plan in March to address waiting times for mental health services, and invest in the NHS workforce.