Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to reduce the waiting time for treatment by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

We have introduced a new waiting time standard for treatment of children and young people with eating disorders, setting an expectation that by 2020, 95% of those referred will start treatment within one week if the case is urgent and four weeks if the case is non-urgent.

National data on the number of young people receiving treatment within this timeframe in England shows that over 73% of patients started urgent treatment within one week in Quarter 1 2017-18 (206 out of 281 patients started treatment within one week) and nearly 78.9% of patients started routine treatment within four weeks in Quarter 1 2017-18 (1,067 out of 1,355 patients started treatment within four weeks).

This is positive initial progress some three years before the 95% level of the standard comes into force.

We are also currently exceeding the waiting time standard for Early Intervention in Psychosis, with nearly 75% of patients starting treatment within two weeks in July 2017.

The upcoming children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, which will be published by the end of the year, will include plans to improve timely access to specialist mental health services for those children and young people who need it most.