Children and Young People: Mental Health Services

(asked on 15th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the Education Policy Institute's Annual Report on access to child and adolescent mental health services, published on 10 January 2020; and what steps his Department will take with the Department of Health and Social Care to (a) increase the accountability of mental health providers in England and (b) reduce waiting times for their services.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 22nd January 2020

The Department for Education (DfE) has a joint and ambitious programme of work with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England, and Health Education England to improve children and young people’s mental health provision in and around schools and colleges. This is being achieved by delivering the proposals set out in the green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/transforming-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-provision-a-green-paper.

These proposals include implementing new Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in 20-25% of the country by 2023. The MHSTs will support children and young people with mild to moderate mental health issues and help children and young people with more severe needs to access the right support, and provide a link to specialist NHS services. The DfE is also funding the national roll-out of the Link Programme, from October 2019 to 2023, to improve partnership working between schools and colleges and NHS children and young people’s mental health services.

The DfE has not assessed the policy implications of the Education Policy Institute’s report. The responsibility for mental health provision as considered by the report, including increasing the accountability of mental health providers in England and reducing waiting times for their services, is the responsibility of the DHSC.

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