Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of waiting times for and availability of trauma-informed therapeutic support for child victims of peer-on-peer or child-on-child sexual abuse; and whether she intends to introduce access targets for such support.

We know that timely support is critical for child victims of sexual abuse, and that demand for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) has risen significantly. The 10-Year Health Plan set out an ambitious reform agenda to transform the National Health Service and make it fit for the future. In line with this, we will go further to ensure that NHS mental health services deliver the care that people deserve, including child victims of sexual abuse.

We are committed to reducing waiting times for specialist CAMHS support, as set out in our Medium-Term Planning Framework. We are also accelerating the rollout of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. As part of this, we are investing an additional £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more effective support to young people with complex needs, such as trauma. By bringing in vital services to schools, we can intervene early, promote wellbeing, and support recovery.

Our action so far has resulted in more young people being supported to access NHS mental health services. In the first 12 months of the Government, nearly 40,000 more children and young people received support compared to the previous 12 months.

There are currently no plans to introduce such an access target. The Darzi Review highlighted that there are too many NHS targets, so we have reduced the number of national priorities for 2025/26, focusing on what matters most to patients.