Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of average wait times for people being referred for appointments for mental health support.

Long waits for mental health services are being driven by increasing demand to a system in desperate need of change. The Government is already responding by delivering new and innovative models of care in the community. As part of this, we have launched six neighbourhood adult mental health centres to bring together community, crisis and inpatient care. These operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

NHS England Planning Guidance for 2025/26 makes clear that for this year, to support reform and improvements, we expect all providers to reduce the variation in children and young people accessing services and improve productivity. We are also improving data quality so we can support providers to understand demand across their areas.

As part of our mission to build a National Health Service that is fit for the future and that is there when people need it, the Government will recruit an additional 8,500 staff across children and adult mental health services.