Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Department of Education's press release, Schools and colleges to benefit from boost in expert mental health support, published on 10 May 2021, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) schools and (b) students in London that will have access to a mental health support team as a result of the announcement of that funding.

According to 2018/19 and 2019/20 financial year programme data up to March 2020, in London a) 600 education settings had signed up to work with Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) and b) 340,825 pupils were therefore estimated to have access to those teams. Please note that the education settings data includes further education providers, whereas the pupils data does not. These figures are based on education settings reported to the Department for Education as enrolled in the programme as of March 2020, and pupil number data accessed via Get Information About Schools (GIAS) at the same time. These figures are also based only on those settings reported as enrolled that could be matched via their Unique Reference Number to data in GIAS.

The Department for Education announcement on 10 May references MHSTs, in line with the NHS England and Improvement announcement on 5 March of a £79 million boost to children and young people’s mental health support, which will include increasing the number of MHSTs. There are now over 280 teams set up or in training across the country. 183 of these are operational and ready to support children and young people in around 3,000 education settings, covering 15% of pupils in England. A further 103 MHSTs are in development with more to be commissioned by NHS England and Improvement this year, which will deliver the NHS Long Term Plan commitment to reach 20 – 25% of pupils a year early (by March 2022). 35% of pupils in England (almost three million) are expected to have access to a MHST by 2023.

Please note that the estimates pertaining to London (first paragraph) are based on the first 2 years of the MHSTs programme, to March 2021, whereas the national coverage estimates cover at least 3 years of the programme, to March 2022 and 2023.