Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they have put in place to provide additional (1) monitoring, and (2) reporting, of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and other mental illnesses, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Health England has instigated processes with the aim of providing near to real time information about changes to the population’s mental health and wellbeing during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. These processes will identify, gather and analyse available sources of real time (or near to real time) data about population mental health and wellbeing and will bring together, in one place, information on anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

There is currently no national real-time suspected suicide surveillance system - although some local areas have developed such systems. Public Health England is considering how variation in the number and nature of deaths by suspected suicide in the population might be assessed during and beyond the COVID-19 outbreak.