Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many full-time equivalent mental health professionals were working in schools in the (a) 2019-20, (b) 2020-21, (c) 2021-22 and (d) 2022-23 academic years.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The requested information on mental health professionals working in schools is not collected centrally.
The department collects information on staff working in state funded schools via the annual School Workforce Census but does not directly identify mental health professionals. The results are published in the annual ‘School Workforce in England’ national statistics release, accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.
The mental health of children and young people is a government priority. To expand access to early mental health support, the department is working with NHS England to increase the number of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) working with schools and colleges. These teams include trained professionals who can offer support to children experiencing common mental health problems and liaise with external specialist services to help pupils get the right support. As of April 2023, MHSTs covered 35% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England. A further 100 teams are expected to be operational by April 2024, when MHSTs will cover an estimated 44% of pupils and learners.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
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 (a) increase access to and (b) ensure the adequacy of mental health care available to (i) school-age children and (ii) young adults.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are expanding and transforming children and young people’s mental health services through the NHS Long Term Plan. Funding for mental health services will increase by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024, as part of which an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.
As part of the £500 million COVID-19 funding for the Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, we invested £79 million extra in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services. This allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 18 July 2023 to Question 193133 on Mental Health Services: Further Education and Schools, what his Department's definition is of a mental health team in (a) schools and (b) colleges.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Mental Health Support Teams have three core functions: to deliver evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues; support the senior mental health lead (where established) in each school or college to introduce or develop whole school or college approach; and give timely advice to school and college staff and liaise with external specialist service to help children and young people to get the right support and stay in education.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that there are professional mental health teams linked to schools.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Children and young people are benefitting from the extra funding we are putting into National Health Service mental health services under the NHS Long Term Plan. This will see an additional £2.3 billion a year by March 2024 for all mental health services and will help an extra 345,000 children and young people up to the age of 25 access NHS mental health services by 2023/24.
398 mental health support teams are now operational, covering 3.4 million pupils and learners in England in 6,800 schools and colleges. Over 500 are planned to be up and running by 2024.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to help ensure that teaching assistants providing SEND and mental health support are trained and remunerated in provision of those specialists skills.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department values and appreciates the dedication, professionalism, and hard work of Teaching Assistants (TAs) and recognises the valuable contribution they make to pupils’ education alongside teachers, particularly when supporting pupils with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Support staff play a key role in supporting pupils with SEND. On 2 March 2023, the Department published the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement plan in response to the Green Paper published in March 2022. This outlines the Government’s plan for the SEND and AP system to fulfil pupils’ potential, build parents’ trust and provide financial sustainability. The plan can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1139561/SEND_and_alternative_provision_improvement_plan.pdf.
In the SEND and AP Improvement Plan, the Department confirmed its commitment to setting out clear guidance on the effective use and deployment of TAs to support pupils with SEND. This will be done through the new SEND and AP practice guides, enabling TAs and learning support assistants to make best use of the available provision set out in the National Standards and setting expectations for good practice in meeting the needs of individual pupils.
Reaching over 70% of schools and further education colleges, the Universal Services programme will help the school and further education workforce to identify and meet the needs of pupils with SEND earlier and more effectively. It will also help them to successfully prepare pupils for adulthood, including employment. So far, over 5,700 school and college staff, including TAs, have accessed free online training modules, and over 70 schools and 135 colleges have identified and led their own SEND focused school improvement project. These have focused on SEND Governance, TA deployment and early identification of SEND. Universal training modules are available to all school and college staff at all stages of their careers, at the point of need, with a particular focus on mainstream settings.
Ultimately, schools are best placed to make decisions on the continuing professional development (CPD) that best meets the needs of their support staff, as they do for teachers' CPD.
The Government’s education reforms gave schools the freedom to make their own decisions about recruitment, pay, conditions, and use of TAs. Schools should have the freedom to make these decisions, as they are best placed to understand their pupils’ needs.
Many schools pay TAs according to local Government pay scales. These are set through negotiations between the Local Government Association, which represents the employer, and Local Government trade unions (UNISON, Unite, and the GMB), which represent the employee. Central Government does not have any formal role in these matters.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many mental health support teams are in (a) schools and (b) colleges, broken down by region.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Department for Education analysis shows that 398 mental health support teams are now operational, covering 3.4 million pupils and learners in England in 6,800 schools and colleges. A further 100 teams are in training, taking the total number of operational teams to approximately 500 by spring 2024.
The current number of such teams in schools and colleges broken down by type of educational setting and by region is not available.
Asked by: Feryal Clark (Labour - Enfield North)
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 reduce waiting times for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in (a) Enfield North constituency, (b) the London Borough of Enfield and (c) London.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are investing an additional £2.3 billion per year by March 2024 to enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 children and young people, and including those in the Enfield area and across London more widely, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.
We also provided an additional £500 million for 2021/22, targeting those groups whose mental health has been most affected by the pandemic including children and young people. Within the £500 million, £79 million was invested to allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges. £13 million was invested to ensure young adults aged 18 to 25, including university students, are supported with tailored mental health support, helping bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.
This additional funding has accelerated coverage of mental health support teams across the country. As of spring 2022, 287 mental health support teams were in place in 4,700 schools and colleges, covering 26% of pupils in England. This means that we achieved 25% coverage a year earlier than planned.
There are now almost 400 mental health support teams in place, covering over 3 million children or around 35% of pupils in schools and colleges, with over 500 planned to be up and running by 2024.
Over 10,000 schools and colleges have trained a senior mental health lead, including more than six in ten state-funded secondary schools in England.
In February, NHS England published the outcomes of its consultation on the potential to introduce five new access and waiting time standards for mental health services, including that children and young people should start to receive care within four weeks from referral, as part of its clinically-led review of National Health Service access standards. We are now working with NHS England on the next steps.
Asked by: Baroness Merron (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of specialist day care provision and home-based treatment for eating disorders, as compared to inpatient treatment for (1) children and young people, and (2) adults.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is refreshing guidance on children and young people's eating disorders, with an increased focus on early identification and intervention. Updated guidance will highlight the importance of improved integration between community eating disorder services, wider children and young people's mental health services, schools, colleges and primary care. This will improve awareness, provide expert advice and improve support for children and young people presenting with problems with eating.
In 2019, NHS England published an addendum to the national Children and Young People’s Eating Disorder Guidance to include guidance on integration between community eating disorder services and inpatient and day care services, noting that “children and young people should be treated as close to home as possible, at the earliest opportunity, to substantially reduce the need for admission and length of stay”.
In 2022/23, 47% more children and young people have started National Institute for Health and Care Excellence concordant evidence-based treatment in the community, compared to 2019/20.
For adults, National Health Service guidance on intensive day patient treatment and home-based treatment outlines that intensive day patient treatment provides step-down care from inpatient treatment or an alternative to admission.
It may be provided by either an inpatient unit or a community eating disorder (CED) service, at least four to five times a week, and should include support around main meals as well as encouraging people to learn skills and engage in activities that contribute towards their recovery. Integrated working across day patient and CED services can help support people to live in the community and prevent relapse or readmission.
Asked by: Baroness Merron (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the commissioning of integrated services for eating disorders for (1) children and young people, and (2) adults.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is refreshing guidance on children and young people's eating disorders, including to increase the focus on early identification and intervention. Updated guidance will highlight the importance of improved integration between dedicated community eating disorder services, wider children and young people's mental health services, schools, colleges and primary care to improve awareness, provide expert advice and improve support for children and young people presenting with problems with eating, whilst ensuring swift access to specialist support as soon as an eating disorder is suspected.
Improving adult eating disorder (AED) services is a key priority for NHS England and a fundamental part of our LTP commitment to expand and improve mental health services.
The NHS Long Term Plan sets out an ambition to give 370,000 adults and older adults with severe mental illness, including eating disorders, greater choice and control over their care and support them to live well in their communities by 2023/24. This includes creating integrated pathways of care across primary care, mental health services, VCS organisations, and social care, for people with severe mental illness. This programme will deliver just under £1 billion of additional funding per year for transforming community mental health by 2023/24.
Since April 2021 all integrated care systems (ICSs) have received fair-share funding to transform their community mental health services, including eating disorders, with the expectation that all ICS will have transformed AED services in place by 2023/24.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Wirral South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to help support children whose mental health is affected by their financial circumstances.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We are increasing investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024 and have set out our aim in the NHS Long Term Plan for an additional 345,000 children and young people, including those from low income families, to be able to get the mental health support they need.
We are making good progress in rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges across England. As of spring 2022 there were 287 in place in over 4,700 schools and colleges across the country, offering support to children experiencing anxiety, depression, and other common mental health issues. We expect this is now at around 399 teams covering 35% of pupils. Over 500 are planned to be up and running by 2024.
On top of this we provided an extra £500 million in 2021/22 to accelerate our NHS mental health expansion plans and target groups whose mental health has been most affected by the pandemic. This included £79 million to expand support in children and young people’s mental health services; and a £15 million Prevention and Promotion for Better Mental Health Fund to help level up mental health and wellbeing across the country by investing in activity to promote positive mental health in the 40 most deprived local authority areas in England.
More widely, we are working across government and with external partners to identify who is most vulnerable to the impacts of increased cost of living, and what action can be taken to support them. The Government announced a £37 billion package of cost of living support to help households and businesses, including a £15 billion targeted package of direct support for the most vulnerable households.