Recommendation 23

In our 2018 report on mental health services for children and young people, we noted that the Department had not clarified what ‘parity of esteem’ meant in practice. We recommended that the Department clearly defined the criteria it would use to measure progress and what data/information it required.45 Many stakeholders who contributed to this inquiry told us that setting out a clear definition of ‘parity of esteem’, objectives and roadmap to achieve them is important to understand progress and ensure delivery. However, there is still no clear definition of the end goal of ‘parity of esteem’, 12 years after the government first set out its ambitions.46