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.

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 statistic displays the most common mental health illnesses experienced over the past year in the United Kingdom (UK) according to a survey conducted in 2015. Of respondents 29 percent said they were experiencing anxiety problems.

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.

Psychiatric hospital activity statistics. Contains information on trends in inpatient activity, including data shown by NHS Board and diagnosis. Statistics on psychiatric readmissions are also published. Source agency: ISD Scotland (part of NHS National Services Scotland) Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Mental Health Inpatient Statistics

In 2014, 29% of Black women had experienced a common mental disorder in the week before being surveyed, a higher rate than for White women.

According to a survey carried out in the UK in May 2020, it was found that 34 percent of respondents reported that the coronavirus pandemic has has a somewhat negative impact on their mental health. A further seven percent of respondents said the pandemic has had a very negative impact on their mental health, although 46 percent reported no impact.

The latest number of cases in the UK can be found here. For further information about the coronavirus pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom in May 2025, a total of 87 percent of respondents stated that social media had negatively affected their mental health. Of these respondents, one-in-ten young social media users said it had negatively impacted their mental health too many times to count.

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
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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?

This report presents findings from the third (wave 3) in a series of follow up reports to the 2017 Mental Health of Children and Young People (MHCYP) survey, conducted in 2022. The sample includes 2,866 of the children and young people who took part in the MHCYP 2017 survey. The mental health of children and young people aged 7 to 24 years living in England in 2022 is examined, as well as their household circumstances, and their experiences of education, employment and services and of life in their families and communities. Comparisons are made with 2017, 2020 (wave 1) and 2021 (wave 2), where possible, to monitor changes over time.

In 2019, a survey of young people in the United Kingdom found that for ** percent of those surveyed, their self-esteem was affected when they struggled with their mental health. In addition, ** percent of respondents felt mental health problems affected both their relationships and their education.

According to a survey conducted in the United Kingdom in 2021, 73 percent of social media users said they wanted to see people who troll permanently banned from platforms as a protective measure put in place by social media firms to safeguard the mental health of users. Overall, 64 percent said that sensitive posts should carry a trigger warning, and 53 percent felt that social media firms should clearly state how users should not interact with one another.

This dataset has been discontinued and replaced with the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics dataset, available at https://data.gov.uk/dataset/mental-health-services-monthly-statistics The Mental Health Minimum Data Set (MHMDS) was renamed Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Data Set (MHLDDS) following an expansion in scope (from September 2014) to include people in contact with learning disability services for the first time. This monthly statistical release makes available the most recent Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) data from April 2013 onwards. Further analysis to support currencies and payment in adult and older people's mental health services was added to the publication of April 2014 final data which can be found in the related links below. These changes are described in the Methodological Change paper referenced below. As well as providing timely data, it presents a wide range of information about care given to users of NHS-funded, secondary mental health services for adults and older people ('secondary mental health services') in England. This information will be of particular interest to organisations involved in giving secondary mental health care to adults and older people, as it presents timely information to support discussions between providers and commissioners of services. The MHMDS Monthly Report now includes the ten nationally recommended quality and outcome indicators to support the implementation of currencies and payment in mental health. For patients, researchers, agencies and the wider public it aims to provide up to date information about the numbers of people using services, spending time in psychiatric hospitals and subject to the Mental Health Act (MHA). Some of these measures are currently experimental analysis.