Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact of covid-19 lockdowns on the diagnoses of (a) behavioural and (c) mental health issues in school age children.

No specific assessment has been made, as data on diagnosis rates is not collected in the format requested. While data on autism diagnosis waiting times is collected through the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS), children and young people are currently largely out of scope.

The MHSDS shows that referrals to children and young people's mental health services in April 2020 had decreased by 42.4% from February 2020. By July 2020, referrals returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, this data shows the number of referrals and not diagnoses.