Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to tackle depression in sports.

The Government’s sport strategy ‘Sporting Future’ recognises the positive impact that being physically active has on mental health, and the importance of welfare and wellbeing for people participating in sport at all levels.

Sport England, DCMS's arm’s length body for grassroots sport in England, launched a new ten year strategy 'Uniting the Movement’ in January 2021 which prioritises the importance of improving mental health and wellbeing through sport and physical activity. They have also committed to working with partners on health and wellbeing, and supporting communities through social prescribing.

Since 2017, Sport England have invested £280 million into grassroots programmes with mental wellbeing outcomes, as well as £5.5 million into partnerships with expert mental health organisations, such as Mind and Rethink. Mind’s ‘Get Set to Go’ programme has supported 8,000 people to improve their mental health through engaging in physical activity since its launch in 2014. Sport England have also worked closely with national partners such as Public Health England (now Office for Health Improvement and Disparities) and the Royal College of GPs to develop the Moving Healthcare Professionals programme, improving social prescribing links by providing support for healthcare professionals to promote physical activity to patients.

At the elite level, the Government published its Mental Health and Elite Sport Action Plan in 2018, setting out a range of actions to improve the support available to athletes, the sharing of best practice across the sector, and mental health education and training. Following this UK Sport, DCMS’s arm’s length body for elite sport, launched its own mental health strategy as well as a programme of mental health education to support athletes and promote positive mental health across the UK’s high performance system.