Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce waiting lists for child and adolescent mental health services.

We are investing an additional £79 million in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s and young people’s mental health services. This will allow approximately 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services and 2,000 more to access eating disorder services as well as accelerating the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

We remain committed to the aim of the NHS Long Term Plan to invest at least a further £2.3 billion a year into mental health by 2023/24. This will see an additional 345,000 children and young people a year accessing National Health Service-funded mental health support. In addition, NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on the potential to introduce a new waiting time standard for children and young people presenting to community-based mental health services, to receive care within four weeks from referral. This consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and the outcomes will inform a recommendation to Government in due course on whether and how to implement this new access standard.