New inquiry to examine progress in children’s mental health services

The select committee, under the leadership of Jeremy Hunt, will focus on the progress the Government has made on children and young people’s mental health, including but not limited to:

1. The ambitions laid out in the 2017 Green Paper
2. Provision of mental health support in schools.
3. Provision of support for young people with eating disorders
4. Addressing capacity and training issues in the mental health workforce
5. Improving access to mental health services 

• How inpatient care can be improved so that it is not creating additional stress on children and young people, and how the use of physical and medical restraint can be reduced.
• The wider changes needed in the system as a whole, and to what extent it should be reformed in favour of a model that focuses on early intervention in children and young people’s mental health to prevent more severe illness developing.
• How the Government can learn from examples of best practice, including from other countries?
• What measures are needed to tackle increasing rates of self-harming and suicide among children and young people?

Mr Hunt said “How to support young people when they face a mental health crisis can never have been more of a priority than now. Three years ago, as Health Secretary, I initiated reforms of the mental health services offered to children and young people.

"This committee’s inquiry will examine progress made against those ambitions, such as improving access to services and the provision of mental health support in schools. We will be considering the case for wider change to prioritise early intervention, and for those who need inpatient care, looking at how the stress can be reduced. Crucially, we will ask what more can be done to reduce the growing numbers who turn to self-harm or suicide.”

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