Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent assessment they have made of access to specialist mental health services for young people who have been in local authority care.

No recent assessments have been made of the mental health outcomes amongst care leavers, or of their access to services. However, one of the themes of Future in mind, published in March 2015 was care for the most vulnerable, including looked after children and care leavers. Although care leavers may be adults, the report addressed the needs of those in transition to adult services and looked at how services could be improved for those with mental health conditions reaching the age of 18 when they generally transfer to adult services.

The Government is currently considering how best to take forward proposals in Future in mind to deliver system-wide, sustainable transformation as well as the way in which the additional £1.25 billion made available in the 2015 Spring budget for children’s mental health over the course of the current Parliament will be used. However, decisions on how to allocate funding to best meet the needs of individual groups of children and young people will be made locally and reflected in local transformation plans.

A copy of Future in mind is attached.