PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Mental Health Services: Waiting Lists (14 January 2020)

We have committed at least a further £2.3 billion a year to mental health services by 2023/24 which will see spending for children and young people’s mental health services growing faster than the overall spend on mental health, which will itself be growing faster than the overall National Health Service budget. This multi-billion investment, which is part of the NHS Long Term Plan, will give greater mental health support to an extra 345,000 more children and at least 380,000 more adults.

In addition, NHS England is working nationally with 12 pilot sites to test the feasibility of delivering a four-week waiting time for children and young people to access to NHS mental health support. This is an outcome of our Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health.

The agreed pilots end in 2020/21. Results will then be evaluated. The Department and NHS England will consider the results of the evaluation and will look at its implications for the development and rollout of access and waiting time standards for all children and young people who need specialist mental health services.