Sir Nicholas Soames: To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many additional practice-based mental health therapists have been appointed to GP practices in Mid Sussex constituency since 2015-16.

David Mowat, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Community Health and Care: NHS England advises that its south east regional team has not yet commissioned any additional practice-based mental health therapists in the Mid Sussex area.

NHS England’s General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016, sets out a commitment to invest in an extra 3,000 mental health therapists to work in primary care by 2020-21, which is an average of a full-time therapist for every two to three typical sized general practitioner practice.

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