Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's press release entitled Key target hit with 8,500 extra mental health workers in the NHS, published on 30 June 2026, what proportion of the additional mental health workers are currently working in (a) child and adolescent mental health services and (b) adult mental health services.

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 has delivered on its commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 mental health workers by the end of this Parliament, three years ahead of schedule.

These new staff include over 1,200 new doctors, over 4,500 new nurses, and a range of other support staff, primarily psychological professions, which will help to ease pressure on busy mental health services.

Of the 8,532 new mental health full-time equivalent staff in post between 30 June 2024 and 30 April 2026, 1,552 were recorded in ‘Mental Health Child and Adolescent’ and ‘Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’, the equivalent to 18% of the increase. This is not a full count of all children and young people’s mental health staff, as the published data does not consistently identify where all staff work. It is therefore not possible to provide a reliable breakdown of the additional mental health workforce between child and adolescent mental health services and adult mental health services from the published data.

However, these additional staff are deployed across the system to support a range of national priorities, improving access and reducing waiting times for both adults and children and young people.

Further detail is available in NHS workforce statistics, published monthly by NHS England, available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics