Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve the integration of accredited counsellors and psychotherapists into the existing mental health workforce to bolster recruitment and retention.

Accredited counsellors and psychotherapists constitute a significant proportion of the NHS Talking Therapies workforce. A collaborative campaign to encourage accredited counsellors and psychotherapists to apply to work in NHS Talking Therapies services has been developed by NHS England with several of the counselling and psychotherapy professional bodies. These professionals are a vital part of our mental health workforce and are fully integrated within it, delivering psychological therapies for depression recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.