Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will introduce maximum waiting list times for adults accessing mental health services, such as ADHD services, in England.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on the potential to introduce five new waiting time standards. This includes a standard for adults and older adults presenting to community-based mental health services to receive help within four weeks from referral. However, this is not a maximum waiting time. NHS England and NHS Improvement published the outcomes of the consultation on 22 February 2022 and we will work with the National Health Service on the next steps.
Local commissioners and providers in England should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline: ‘Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: diagnosis and management’ with respect to adult ADHD assessments. While this guideline does not recommend a maximum waiting time for people to receive an ADHD assessment, it recommends that mental health services should form multidisciplinary specialist teams and/or clinics for adults, which should have expertise in the diagnosis and management of ADHD.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the length of waiting lists for mental health services in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No formal assessment has been made. Information on waiting lists is not held at constituency level. In Coventry and Warwickshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area, referrals to community teams for adults and children have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Services have targeted resources and average waiting times have been maintained at below pre-COVID-19 levels. Waiting times have increased for some services, including psychological therapy within community teams and children’s eating disorders. The CCG continues to plan for anticipated increases in demand. Significant additional funding is committed to address areas where waiting times have been increasing.
In the West Midlands, most waiting lists are reducing although some areas such as children’s eating disorder and adult crisis services have seen an increase in demand. NHS Midlands continues to work with services in Coventry and Warwickshire and the West Midlands to reduce waiting times for mental health services.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle waiting lists for mental health services in Hertfordshire.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
To improve mental health waiting lists in the Hertfordshire area, 14 organisations have formed the Hertfordshire Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Collaborative. The Collaborative aims to develop joint working between these organisations to improve outcomes for local people. It will address local mental health demand in Hertfordshire and manage waiting times to ensure people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.
We have provided an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expanding the provision of mental health services in England. This will allow an additional two million people to access timely mental health care. We have also invested a further £500 million in 2021/22.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that autistic people with mental health needs can access appropriate services in the community, from low level support to crisis provision.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are investing £31 million in 2021/22 to support discharge and improve support in the community for autistic adults, children and for people with a learning disability. We are providing £3.5 million for local systems to identify children and young people on autism diagnosis waiting lists who might be at risk of crisis. We are also proposing to create new duties on commissioners to ensure there are adequate community-based services for autistic people and people with a learning disability.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress he has made on the implementation of NHS England’s proposed new waiting time standards for mental health care, first published on and opened for public consultation on 22 July 2021; and what additional resources his Department is planning to provide to help support the NHS to achieve those standards.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
NHS England and NHS Improvement will publish the response to the consultation on the proposals for new waiting time standards in due course. The Department will work with NHS England and NHS Improvement on an implementation plan to consider the operational and financial implications of delivering the standards.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the average waiting time for children and adolescent mental health services in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting lists for children and adolescent mental health services in those areas.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No such estimate has been made as a national access and waiting times standard for child and adolescent mental health services has not yet been defined.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on the potential to introduce five new waiting time standards as part of its clinically led review of National Health Service access standards. This includes a standard for children, young people, and their families/carers presenting to community-based mental health services, should start to receive care within four weeks from referral. This consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement will publish a response in due course.
On 5 March 2021, we announced an additional £79 million in 2021/22 for children and young people’s mental health services, allowing approximately 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services and accelerating the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges in England. We are also investing £2.3 billion a year in mental health services by 2023/24 to allow 345,000 more children and young people to access support. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also announced a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children and young people’s mental health.
Asked by: Lyn Brown (Labour - West Ham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to A joint thematic inspection of the criminal justice journey for individuals with mental health needs and disorders, published on 17 November 2021, what recent assessment he has made of the potential effect on reoffending of the length of waiting lists for (a) mental health assessments in the community and (b) mental health treatments in the community.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The MoJ welcomes the joint thematic inspection of the criminal justice journey for individuals with mental health needs and disorders and will be providing a formal response and supporting action plan with HMPPS, DHSC and NHSE/I in the new year.
The Government is committed to tackling the causes of reoffending to keep our communities safe. We know there is a link between homelessness and reoffending; offenders without settled accommodation are around 50 percent more likely to reoffend. As part of the Beating Crime plan, MoJ have delivered a new transitional accommodation service for offenders leaving prison at risk of homelessness. Launched initially in five probation regions this July it is offering up to 12 weeks temporary accommodation and support to prison leavers to facilitate them into settled accommodation.
My department is supporting efforts to ensure those with mental health needs are referred to community services for assessment and treatment in a timely fashion through such work as the NHS’ RECONNECT scheme which provides a care after prison custody service to support patients through all healthcare pathways including mental health. Integrated Offender Management (IOM) schemes include clear pathways to support mental health services to help address the root cause of criminal behaviour. By facilitating offenders’ access to these services, we are helping them turn their back on crime.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what comparative assessment his Department has made of waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service referrals (a) as at 18 October 2021 and (b) before the covid-19 outbreak; and what steps he is taking to reduce waiting times for those services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
No comparative assessment has been made as a national access and waiting times standard for child and adolescent mental health services has not yet been defined. NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on the potential to introduce five new waiting time standards as part of its clinically-led review of access standards. One such standard is that children, young people, and their families/carers presenting to community-based mental health services, should start to receive care within four weeks from referral. This consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement are analysing the consultation responses to inform a recommendation to the Government in due course.
On 5 March 2021, we announced an additional £79 million in 2021/22 for children and young people’s mental health services, allowing around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services and 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services and accelerate the coverage of mental health support teams over 2021/22. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also announced a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people’s mental health.
Asked by: George Howarth (Labour - Knowsley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact that the covid-19 outbreak has had on waiting lists for mental health services.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
We are monitoring the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic may have had on the mental health of adults, children and young people as new evidence becomes available. While increased demand has resulted in longer waiting times for some, it cannot currently be quantified as national access and waiting times standards for National Health Service adult and children and young people’s mental health services have not yet been defined.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have consulted on five new waiting time standards as part of its clinically-led review of access standards. The consultation closed on 1 September 2021 and NHS England and NHS Improvement expect to publish the response to the consultation by the end of this year.
Asked by: Janet Daby (Labour - Lewisham East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the average NHS waiting times for psychiatric care in July 2021.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
The data is not held in the format requested as a national access and waiting times standard for National Health Service mental health services has not yet been defined. Currently, access and waiting times standards exist for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services and performance data is available at the following link:
Early intervention for psychosis services performance data is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/eip-waiting-times/
Children and young people's eating disorder services performance data is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cyped-waiting-times/
The NHS Long Term Plan committed to invest at least an additional £2.3 billion a year into mental health services by 2023/24. This increased investment will ensure that an additional 345,000 children and young people and 380,000 more adults will have timely access to NHS funded mental health services.