Lord Ouseley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-04-12.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take to prevent mental health services from turning away children who seek help.
Lord Prior of Brampton
Children and young people’s mental health (CYPMH) is a priority area for this Government. It is committed to delivering the vision set out in Future in mind, the previous Government’s report on the work of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Taskforce. This report established a clear and powerful consensus about change across the whole system, including health, social care and education. To support this transformation programme the Government is committed to making an additional £1.4 billion available over the course of this Parliament.
As a first step in this transformation programme all clinical commissioning groups working with their partners, have developed Local Transformation Plans to transform their offer for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. These plans cover the full spectrum of mental health issues: from prevention and improving access, to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problems, as well as transitions between services.
Whilst the intention is to prevent mental health problems from arising in the first place, improving access for those who have developed problems as early as possible is essential. By 2020, at least 70,000 more children and young people each year will have access to high quality mental health care when they need it. This will require systems for rapid identification of children in need of specialised services, and improved links between different agencies so that children and young people are referred to the most appropriate service. £28 million is being spent on extending and expanding the Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme so that by 2018 all children and young people across England will have access to evidence-based and appropriate interventions. The Government has also invested nearly £3 million into the Mental Health Services and Schools Links Pilots to jointly train designated leads in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and schools to improve access to mental health services for children and young people. This should reduce the number of children being turned away from services and lead to the ‘no wrong door’ approach that is integral to the transformation programme.
