In the 12-month period ending in March 2021, the government increased the number of children and young people aged under 18 who received NHS-funded mental health services in England to around 758,000.
Incorrect. This would be true about the 12-month period ending in January 2024. But in the year to March 2021 it was about 573,000.
We have increased the number of children and young people aged under 18 through NHS-funded mental health services from the 12-month period ending March 21 to some 758,000 children. [sic]
In the 12-month period ending in March 2021, we increased the number of children and young people aged under 18 who received NHS-funded mental health services to some 758,000.
During a debate in the House of Commons earlier this week, the health secretary Victoria Atkins made a claim about the number of children and young people in England seen by NHS mental health services—but as shown above, what she actually said is not what has been published by Hansard.
According to someone Full Fact contacted at Hansard, which is the public record of what’s said in Parliament, Ms Atkins’s words were changed for clarity. This is a common practice in Hansard, which calls itself a “substantially verbatim” report of what is said in Parliament, where words are recorded and then edited “to remove repetitions and obvious mistakes, albeit without taking away from the meaning of what is said”.
Ms Atkins’s claim as recorded in Hansard is clearly incorrect. NHS England data shows that about 573,000 children and young people received NHS mental health services in the 12-month period to March 2021.
The accuracy of what she actually said is harder to judge, however, because the point she was making isn’t entirely clear.
Full Fact contacted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which said that Ms Atkins’s statement was accurate. It told us her comments referred to the fact that over the 12 months to January 2024, 758,000 children and young people were supported through NHS-funded mental health services. It added that this was a 32% increase on the 12 months to March 2021.
The figure of 758,000 would indeed be correct for January 2024, and it rose further in the latest data for February. However, Ms Atkins didn’t mention January 2024 in her comment, and it’s unclear why she mentioned the 12 months to March 2021, especially as she gave no comparative figure from that time period.
DHSC claimed that Hansard may have made a mistake when transcribing Ms Atkins’s words. But when we contacted Hansard, it told us that it felt the change of words didn’t alter their meaning, and that if the claim was inaccurate it would be for Ms Atkins to make a written ministerial correction.
Either way, what’s on the official record isn’t correct. It’s important that ministers and Parliament itself make sure that their statements are both clear and accurate.
Image courtesy of Chris McAndrew
After we published this fact check, we contacted Victoria Atkins to request a correction regarding this claim.
Victoria Atkins is yet to respond.
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