This publication contains the official statistics about uses of the Mental Health Act ('the Act') in England during 2023-24. Under the Act, people with a mental disorder may be formally detained in hospital (or 'sectioned') in the interests of their own health or safety, or for the protection of other people. They can also be treated in the community but subject to recall to hospital for assessment and/or treatment under a Community Treatment Order (CTO). In 2016-17, the way we source and produce these statistics changed. Previously these statistics were produced from the KP90 aggregate data collection. They are now primarily produced from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). The MHSDS provides a much richer data source for these statistics, allowing for new insights into uses of the Act. People may be detained in secure psychiatric hospitals, other NHS Trusts or at Independent Service Providers (ISPs). All organisations that detain people under the Act must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). In recent years, the number of detentions under the Act have been rising. An independent review has examined how the Act is used and has made recommendations for improving the Mental Health Act legislation. In responding to the review, the government said it would introduce a new Mental Health Bill to reform practice. This publication does not cover: 1. People in hospital voluntarily for mental health treatment, as they have not been detained under the Act (see the Mental Health Bulletin). 2. Uses of section 136 where the place of safety was a police station; these are published by the Home Office.

This publication contains the official statistics about uses of the Mental Health Act(1) ('the Act') in England during 2018-19. Under the Act, people with a mental disorder may be formally detained in hospital (or 'sectioned') in the interests of their own health or safety, or for the protection of other people. They can also be treated in the community but subject to recall to hospital for assessment and/or treatment under a Community Treatment Order (CTO). In 2016-17, the way we source and produce these statistics changed. Previously these statistics were produced from the KP90 aggregate data collection. They are now primarily produced from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). The MHSDS provides a much richer data source for these statistics, allowing for new insights into uses of the Act. However, some providers that make use of the Act are not yet submitting data to the MHSDS, or submitting incomplete data. Improvements in data quality have been made over the past year. NHS Digital is working with partners to ensure that all providers are submitting complete data and this publication includes guidance on interpreting these statistics. Footnotes (1) The Mental Health Act 1983 as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007 and other legislation.

Experimental statistics from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS), which replaces the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Dataset (MHLDDS). As well as analysis of waiting times, first published in March 2016 using provisional submissions for January 2016, this release includes elements of the reports that were previously included in monthly reports produced from final MHLDDS submissions. It also includes some new measures.

This publication provides the timeliest picture available of people using NHS funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services in England, excluding those who are solely in contact with Talking Therapies. This information will be of use to people needing access to information quickly for operational decision making and other purposes. More detailed information on the quality and completeness of these statistics is available in the Data Quality section, as well as within the Data Coverage and Data Quality VODIM and Integrity files available under 'Resources'. Please note, the methodology for MHS30f - Attended contacts in the RP with community mental health services for adult and older adults with severe mental illness has been updated to account for both the team ID recorded in the contact and referral tables. This is inline with other metrics that are similar. This brings this metric inline with other similar metrics but there maybe minor methodological differences that mean that summing the totals from other metrics may not match the values presented in this metric.

Context

Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics

This publication provides the most timely picture available of people using NHS funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services in England. These are experimental statistics which are undergoing development and evaluation. This information will be of use to people needing access to information quickly for operational decision making and other purposes. More detailed information on the quality and completeness of these statistics is made available later in our Mental Health Bulletin: Annual Report publication series.

• COVID-19 and the production of statistics

Due to the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) disruption, it would seem that this is now starting to affect the quality and coverage of some of our statistics, such as an increase in non-submissions for some datasets. We are also starting to see some different patterns in the submitted data. For example, fewer patients are being referred to hospital and more appointments being carried out via phone/telemedicine/email. Therefore, data should be interpreted with care over the COVID-19 period.

Content

Time period covered Feb 1, 2020 - April 31, 2020

Area covered England

Acknowledgements

reference: Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics

Author: Community and Mental Health Team, NHS Digital
Responsible Statistician: Tom Poupart, Principal Information Analyst
Public Enquiries: Telephone: 0300 303 5678
Email: enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk
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You may re-use this document/publication (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0.
To view this licence visit To view this licence visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU; or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk

Cover by-

Inspiration

This dataset is to solve the challenge- UNCOVER COVID-19 Challenge, United Network for COVID Data Exploration and Research. This data is scraped in hopes of solving the task - Mental health impact and support services.

Task Details Can we predict changes in demand for mental health services and how can we ensure access? (by region, social/economic/demographic factors, etc). Are there signs of shifts in mental health challenges across demographies, whether improvements or declines, as a result of COVID-19 and the various measures implement to contain the pandemic?

In 2018/19, approximately **** thousand girls aged between eleven and fifteen years in England were in contact at least once with NHS mental health services. In addition there were **** thousand boys in the eleven to fifteen years age group who were in contact with mental health services in this year.

Experimental statistics from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) - Children & Young People

As of November 2023, over 41.8 thousand mental health nurses worked for the National Health Service (NHS) in England. From 2016 to 2023, the number of mental health nurses staff had a slight steady increase. This statistic depicts the total number of mental health nurses in the NHS Hospitals and Community Health Service (HCHS) workforce in England from 2009 to 2023.

This bulletin provides statistics on NHS services for people with severe and enduring mental health problems developed from the Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) annual returns.

A 2023 survey of patient's experiences with NHS mental health services in England showed that ** percent of respondents would give their experience the highest rating possible. Conversely, **** percent of respondents said they had a very poor experience.

The MHSDS includes patient level clinical and administrative data for patients, who are in contact with NHS funded mental health services in England. This data set defines the data items and values extracted from local electronic patient record systems.

A survey of NHS mental health service users in England in 2023 showed that almost ** percent of respondents had been in contact with mental health services for between one and five years. A further ** percent had been in contact with NHS mental health services for between six and ten years, while ** percent had been in contact for more than ten years.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People Surveys (MHCYP) series provides data about the mental health of young people living in Great Britain.

The MHCYP was first carried out in 1999, capturing information on 5 to 15-year-olds. It was conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of the Department of Health (now known as the Department of Health and Social Care, or DHSC), The Scottish Health Executive and the National Assembly for Wales. The following survey in the series was conducted in 2002 and focused on children looked after by their local authority. The third survey was conducted in 2004 and collected information from 5 to 16-year-olds. Follow-ups to this survey were conducted after 6 months and again after 3 years.

NHS Digital commissioned the 2017 survey on behalf of the DHSC. It collected information on 2 to 19-year-olds living in England. The survey was carried out by a consortium led by NatCen Social Research, which included the ONS and Youth In Mind.

The MHCYP 2020 survey was a Wave 1 follow-up to the 2017 survey and was conducted under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020, as directed by the then Secretary of State for Health. The Wave 2 follow-up was conducted in 2021, and Wave 3 in 2022.

Further information can be found on the NHS Digital Mental Health of Children and Young People Surveys webpage.

A similar series covering adults, the Adult Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity, is also commissioned by NHS Digital.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017: Special Licence Access survey (MHCYP) is the third in a series of national surveys of the mental health of children and young people. Previous surveys were carried out in 1999 and 2004. The 2017 survey was funded by the Department of Health and commissioned by NHS Digital and carried out by NatCen Social Research, the Office for National Statistics and Youth in Mind. The first in a series of follow-up surveys to MHCYP 2017 was conducted in 2020 - see SN 9128.

The MHCYP 2017 collected information about mental health and well-being from a stratified probability sample of children and young people living in England and registered with a GP. Information was collected on 9,117 children aged 2 to 19 between January and October 2017. The survey combines reports from children, their parents and teachers (depending on the age of the selected child). This survey for the first time provides findings on the prevalence of the mental disorder in 2 to 4-year-olds and spans the transition into adulthood by covering 17 to 19-year-olds.

The main aims of the survey were:

• to collect robust data on a range of topics relating to the mental health of children and young people;
• to estimate what proportion of children and young people in England are living with a mental disorder (and the types of mental disorders experienced);
• produce trends in disorders through comparisons with previous surveys in the series
• enable the circumstances of children and young people with different mental disorders to be compared with those of children and young people without;
• improve understanding of the state of children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing;
• inform the design of mental health services for children and young people.

Further information about the study can be found on the NHS digital webpage Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017 [PAS].

Latest edition information

For the second edition (August 2021), a new version of the data file was deposited, with corrections included for two issues uncovered during subsequent analysis. More detail on these corrections can be found in the User Guide, which has also been updated accordingly.

In a 2020 survey of those who had received NHS mental health treatment in England, ** percent of respondents reported that the mental health services definitely involved a member of their family, or someone else close to them, as much as the patient liked. On the other hand, ******** percent reported that their loved ones were not involved as much as they would have liked.

This dataset contains responses from an online survey of 2187 participants primarily located in the UK. All participants stated that they had used the UK National Health Service (NHS) at some time in their lives. The data were collected between December 2018 and August 2019. Participants' views on data sharing - this dataset contains information about people's willingness to share mental and physical health data for research purposes. It also includes information on willingness to share other types of data, such as financial information. The dataset includes participants' responses to questions relating to mental health data sharing, including the trustworthiness of organisations which use such data, how much the presence of different governance measures (such as deidentification, opt-out, etc.) would alter their views, and whether they would be less likely to access NHS mental health services if they knew their data might be shared with researchers. Participants' satisfaction and interaction with UK mental and physical health services - the dataset includes information regarding participants' views on and interaction with NHS services. This includes ratings of satisfaction at first contact and in the previous 12 months, frequency of use, and type of treatment received. Information about participants - the dataset includes information about participants' mental and physical health, including whether or not they have experience with specific mental health conditions, and how they would rate their mental and physical health at the time of the survey. There is also basic demographic information about the participants (e.g. age, gender, location etc.). ## This item has been replaced by the one which can be found at https://hdl.handle.net/10283/4467 ##

This is the second (wave 2) in a series of follow up reports to the Mental Health and Young People Survey (MHCYP) 2017, exploring the mental health of children and young people in February/March 2021, during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and changes since 2017. Experiences of family life, education, and services during the COVID-19 pandemic are also examined. The sample for the Mental Health Survey for Children and Young People, 2021 (MHCYP 2021), wave 2 follow up was based on 3,667 children and young people who took part in the MHCYP 2017 survey, with both surveys also drawing on information collected from parents. Cross-sectional analyses are presented, addressing three primary aims: Aim 1: Comparing mental health between 2017 and 2021 – the likelihood of a mental disorder has been assessed against completion of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) in both years in Topic 1 by various demographics. Aim 2: Describing life during the COVID-19 pandemic - Topic 2 examines the circumstances and experiences of children and young people in February/March 2021 and the preceding months, covering: COVID-19 infection and symptoms. Feelings about social media use. Family connectedness. Family functioning. Education, including missed days of schooling, access to resources, and support for those with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Changes in circumstances. How lockdown and restrictions have affected children and young people’s lives. Seeking help for mental health concerns. Aim 3: Present more detailed data on the mental health, circumstances and experiences of children and young people by ethnic group during the coronavirus pandemic (where sample sizes allow). The data is broken down by gender and age bands of 6 to 10 year olds and 11 to 16 year olds for all categories, and 17 to 22 years old for certain categories where a time series is available, as well as by whether a child is unlikely to have a mental health disorder, possibly has a mental health disorder and probably has a mental health disorder. This study was funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, commissioned by NHS Digital, and carried out by the Office for National Statistics, the National Centre for Social Research, University of Cambridge and University of Exeter.

The Mental Health of Children and Young People Surveys (MHCYP) series provides data about the mental health of young people living in Great Britain.

The MHCYP was first carried out in 1999, capturing information on 5 to 15-year-olds. It was conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of the Department of Health (now known as the Department of Health and Social Care, or DHSC), The Scottish Health Executive and the National Assembly for Wales. The following survey in the series was conducted in 2002 and focused on children looked after by their local authority. The third survey was conducted in 2004 and collected information from 5 to 16-year-olds. Follow-ups to this survey were conducted after 6 months and again after 3 years.

NHS Digital commissioned the 2017 survey on behalf of the DHSC. It collected information on 2 to 19-year-olds living in England. The survey was carried out by a consortium led by NatCen Social Research, which included the ONS and Youth In Mind.

The MHCYP 2020 survey was a Wave 1 follow-up to the 2017 survey and was conducted under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020, as directed by the then Secretary of State for Health. The Wave 2 follow-up was conducted in 2021, and Wave 3 in 2022.

Further information can be found on the NHS Digital Mental Health of Children and Young People Surveys webpage.

A similar series covering adults, the Adult Surveys of Psychiatric Morbidity, is also commissioned by NHS Digital.

The primary purpose of the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Great Britain, 1999 survey was to produce prevalence rates of three main categories of mental disorder:
conduct disorder;
hyperactivity;
emotional disorders (and their comorbidity);
based on ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision) and DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth revision) criteria. Where there were sufficient numbers, the survey also aimed to provide prevalence rates of type of problem (e.g., separation anxiety, social phobia etc.) and to investigate the comorbidity or co-occurrence of disorders.