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 the (a) adequacy of mental health service provision in (i) Coventry, (ii) the West Midlands and (iii) England and (b) effect of the covid-19 outbreak on mental health services in those areas; and what steps his Department is taking to improve (A) funding for, (B) provision of and (C) access to metal health services in those areas.
We continually assess mental health services in England, including Coventry and the West Midlands. We have committed £2.3 billion of additional funding each year by 2023/24 to l allow a further two million people to access mental health care.
The Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, published in March 2021, provided an additional £500 million in 2021/22 to ensure the right support is in place in England, including in Coventry and the West Midlands. The Plan aims to respond to the impact of the pandemic on mental health, specifically targeting groups which have been most affected including those with severe mental illness, such as young people and frontline staff.