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Mental Health Services: Children and Young People

Answer

Since 2018, we have invested an extra £2.3 billion a year to expand mental health services in England, with the aim of enabling two million more people, including 345,000 more children and young people to access mental health support.

We’re rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges. These now cover approximately 35% of pupils and are expected to reach 50% of pupils by March 2025. NHS England is also developing a new waiting time standard for children and their families to receive community-based mental health care within four weeks of referral.

Whilst the relevant data is not available at a constituency level, the following table shows the number of referrals for children and young people aged under 18 years old, supported through National Health Service-funded mental health, and waiting times for first contact between September and November 2023 for NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB), North West Commissioning Region, and England:

Location	Number of referrals	Median waiting time between referral start date and first contact	90th percentile waiting time between referral start date and first contact
NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB	8,550	21 days	469 days
North West Commissioning Region	26,125	11 days	250 days
England	179,295	13 days	225 days

Source: Mental Health Services Data Set, NHS England

Notes:

1. These metrics are in line with the proposed new waiting time standards for mental health but are not yet associated with a target, due to significant data quality concerns on the part of NHS England.

The 90th percentile waiting time was 469 days meaning 10% of children and young people who received a first contact in this period waited over 469 days.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

11356

Session

2023-24

Subjects

Children Mental health services Waiting lists Young people North West

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk