Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 17 June 2021 to Question 10549, on Eating Disorders: Mental Health Services, when he plans to set a target on increasing access to children and young people's eating disorder services in 2022-23.
We remain committed to the access standard that 95% of children and young people with an eating disorder will receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and within four weeks for routine cases until 2023/24. To help meet this standard, we are investing £79 million extra in 2021/22 to expand children’s mental health services, including allowing 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services and increasing the number of mental health support teams in schools and colleges from 59 to 400 by April 2023, supporting nearly three million children. As set out in the NHS Long Term Plan, an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access mental health services, including those for eating disorders by 2023/24.