Excess Mortality for People Referred to Secondary Mental Health Services (aged 18 to 74), 2017 to 2019

This report contains sensitive content which refers to details on deaths by suicide.

If you are struggling to cope, please call the Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and the Republic of Ireland) or contact other sources of support, such as those listed on the NHS help for suicidal thoughts webpage. Support is available around the clock, every day of the year, providing a safe place for you, whoever you are and however you are feeling.

Any onward reporting of this data should consider following the Samaritans’ media guidelines on the reporting of suicide because of the potentially damaging consequences of irresponsible reporting. In particular, the guidelines advise on terminology and include links to sources of support for anyone affected by the themes in this report.

NHS Digital have uncovered an issue with the underlying data previously published in this publication. The issue impacts all of the data included in this publication and as such the data has been removed.

This data has been reissued on May 4, 2022.

Previous versions of the data held for the 2017-19 reporting period should be disregarded.

An error has been identified with the data in this publication. This error relates to data for Buckinghamshire UTLA and subsequently the the data for the South East region. The Buckinghamshire UTLA underwent changes in the 3 year period which were not previously accounted for. This has been rectified and changed. Changes are at region level are not significant however the changes at UTLA level for Buckinghamshire are significant.

The data files for this publication have been revised and updated inline with the processing used for 2020-2022 and to reflect the revised population estimates for 2012 through to 2020 following the 2021 Census. Please note that the breakdown for Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) has not been included in this update as revised population estimates are not currently available. This breakdown will be included in the future once population estimates are available.

To measure the extent to which adults in contact with secondary mental health services die younger by suicide than adults who are not in contact with secondary mental health services by suicide, a new underlying cause of death 'suicide' has been added to this publication.

There is a higher suicide rate among people referred to secondary mental health services in the 5 years before their death. This is likely to reflect the greater mental health needs and higher underlying risk in this group compared with the general population. These clinical characteristics should be considered when interpreting the statistics. Mental health services play an important role in suicide prevention by supporting people at increased risk of suicide. The statistics should be interpreted with caution.

A patient is classed as being in contact with secondary mental health services if they had an open referral with secondary mental health services in the 5 years before their death using data from the Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS).

This is contrast to the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) which evaluates patients in contact with Mental Health services in the year before their death using a separate data collection method.

As such, a separate report has been developed comparing patients dying by suicide who had contact in the year before their death using MHSDS and the NCISH reports to ensure that the figures in this publication are reliable. This report is available here Suicide in people with severe mental health problems - GOV.UK.