Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many (a) residents, (b) children and (c) adolescents from Lambeth and Southwark were admitted to a mental health facility outside the London boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon served by South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in the last year.

The information requested is not held centrally.

Inpatient mental health services for children and young people are commissioned by NHS England. The NHS England (London) Specialised Commissioning team has advised that, in 2015-16, 90 children and young people from Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark and Croydon were treated in the South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust, while 69 received inpatient care elsewhere. Of these, 24 received care from other London-based providers.

The current national service review aims to rebalance the provision of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) capacity to address deficits in services, it is expected that as a result more patients will be able to received inpatient care closer to home. There are a number of more specialised services with the CAMHS portfolio that will continue to be commissioned to serve multi-regional populations – for example medium secure services and deaf inpatient care. London Region specialised commissioning team is working with local commissioners in Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon and other clinical commissioning groups to ensure that we can provide sufficient capacity to meet population needs.