PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Mental Health Services: Finance (12 June 2019)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Children's Commissioner for England on early access to mental health support published in April 2019, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the real-term fall in spending on low-level mental health services across 60 percent of local authorities in England.

Asked by:
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour)

The Government recognises the need to adequately fund mental health services for children and young people and, as indicated in the NHS Long Term Plan, for the first time, funding for children and young people’s mental health services will grow faster than both overall National Health Service funding and total mental health funding. Mental health services will continue to receive a growing share of the NHS budget, with funding growing by at least £2.3 billion a year in real terms by 2023/24.

The Department has made no assessment of the causes for the variation seen in real-terms funding per child for low-level mental health services as this is a matter for local authorities.

Answered by:
Dame Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative)
20 June 2019