Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-02-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to prioritise therapeutic services for children who have suffered abuse.
Alistair Burt
The Government is committed to delivering the vision set out in the Future in mind report and is driving forward the transformation of children and young people’s mental health services to improve access to high quality support across the country. This transformation is being supported by £1.25 billion of additional Government investment, as well as an extra £150 million to help young people with eating disorders.
Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) will set out how local organisations will use the additional investment of £1.4 billion the Government is making available during the course of this Parliament to transform local Child and Adolescent Mental Health services. All clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), working closely with their partners in local government, Children’s Services and education, have developed plans to transform their local offer. These plans cover the full spectrum of mental health issues: from prevention and resilience building, to support and care for existing and emerging mental health problems, as well as transitions between services and addressing the needs of the most vulnerable. This includes those who have been exposed to sexual abuse or exploitation. Decisions on access to services are based on assessment of clinical need.
NHS England increased funding of sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) from £8.98 million in 2013/14 to £16.5 million in 2014/15, especially to improve the paediatric response to the needs of sexually abused children. NHS England continues to make the health services response to sexual abuse a priority, and in addition to producing a five year plan for commissioning SARCs, they are planning to engage with CCGs on the delivery of therapeutic care to support survivors.
The Government has set up the first ever cross-Government Ministerial Child Protection Taskforce to overhaul the way police, schools, social services and others work together in tackling abuse of children. The Taskforce’s work will build on the Government’s wide-ranging reforms to create a care system that puts children’s needs first.
