Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Royal College of Nursing and other health bodies on a virtual reality game to detect and treat schizophrenia.

No such discussions have taken place.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not issued any guidance on this precise type of treatment. In the absence of guidance from NICE, commissioners should make decisions on the availability of individual treatments based on the evidence available to them. Existing NICE guidance on ‘Psychosis and schizophrenia in adults: prevention and management’ will be reviewed in 2018.