Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the Department has to ensure continuity of funding for Early Support Hubs beyond March 2026; and how will they be integrated into the introduction of Young Futures Hubs from next year.

The early support hubs were originally funded by the Shared Outcomes Fund, which provided £8 million of top-up funding to expand open-access, community services and to build the evidence base for early intervention services for children and young people's mental health. The project was initially funded in 2024/25 for one year and we were able to extend the programme for an additional year to 2025/26.

In addition to expanding access to support, early support hubs have played a key role building an evidence base to support the introduction of young futures hubs next year. The evaluation findings are directly informing our young futures hubs programme. Young futures hubs will bring services together to support young people with emerging needs, including early mental health advice and wellbeing interventions. As we launch the first 50 young futures hubs, we will work with local areas and partners to build on learning from the early support hubs pilot.

Our aim is to set up 50 hubs where they will have the most impact over the next four years. The design and implementation of the programme in future years will be informed by our work with early adopters. We will set out more details in due course.