Speech and Language Disorders: Chichester
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the level of support available to children with situational mutism in Chichester constituency.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Government recognises that, for children and young people in distress or experiencing mental health difficulties, such as situational mutism, timely access to high-quality, early support is essential.
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including for Children and Young People Mental Health Services (CYPMH) in the Chichester constituency. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning CYPMH for local populations. In doing so, ICBs are expected to be evidence-based, by assessing and responding to the needs of their local communities, and to ensure services are provided equitably.
More widely, as prioritised in our Medium-Term Planning Framework, we are taking action to reduce the longest waits for specialist mental health support, tackling regional disparities, and expanding access, by making services more productive and reducing waiting times. Further to that, we are taking action to improve community mental health support, including through accelerating the rollout of mental health Support teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029, and investing in hubs.
Finally, the new Mental Health Strategy for England will be published later this year. We have launched a Call for Evidence to inform the development of the strategy, which is open for eight weeks and will close on Friday 10 July.
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