Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to mental health services in community settings.

NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on introducing five new waiting time standards that have been developed with pilot and early implementer sites. These include waiting time standards for access to community mental health services for adults and children and young people. The consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement expect to publish the response to the consultation on the proposals by the end of this year.

In addition, we have published our Mental Health Recovery Action Plan for 2021/22, which includes an additional £110 million to expand adult community mental health services including psychological therapies, implementing the community mental health framework, investment in crisis services, as well as additional investment in suicide prevention programmes.