Inpatients Formally Detained in Hospitals Under the Mental Health Act 1983 and Patients Subject to Supervised Community Treatment, England - 2012-2013, Annual figures

The total number of people subject to detention or CTO restrictions under The Act at year end has remained similar to the number during 2011/12. On the 31st March 2013, this figure stood at 22,207 people, 60 fewer than in the previous year. This decrease is less than 1 per cent. Of the number subject to The Act:

• 16,989 people were detained in hospital (a decrease of 514 or 3 per cent). This corresponds with a reported fall in the number of available NHS beds
• 5,218 people were subject to a CTO (an increase of 454 or 10 per cent).

These figures include detentions and CTOs for both NHS and independent sector providers.

There were a total of 50,408 detentions in NHS and independent hospitals during 2012/13. This number was 4 per cent (1,777) greater than during the 2010/11 reporting period. Of this total:

• All detentions in independent sector hospitals increased by 17 per cent; a large proportion of this increase was attributable to a 31 per cent increase (313) in uses of Part II Section 2 on detention to hospital.
• Detentions on admission to NHS and independent hospitals increased by 4 per cent (1,324) overall.
• Detentions under Part III ('Court and Prison disposals') decreased by 16 per cent. In this report we introduce some experimental analysis which compares new data from the criminal justice system to estimate the proportion of people who were detained via courts as opposed to being transferred from prison to hospital.

There were 4,647 CTOs made during 2012/13, an increase of 427 (10 per cent) since last year:

• 190 more CTO recalls were made during 2012/13 than during 2011/12 (a 9 per cent rise) and 41 per cent of CTOs which ended were by revocation (down from 46 per cent during 2011/12).
• The number of CTO revocations has increased by 40 (3 per cent) since the previous year; this increase is small compared with the observed increase between the 2010/11 and 2011/12 reporting years.
• The number of CTO discharges has increased by 450 (an increase of 26 per cent).

There were 14,296 uses of place of safety orders(1) (Sections 135 and 136) in hospitals; this figure is 6 per cent (944) lower than during 2011/12.

• More males than females were subject to place of safety orders in hospitals (8,354 compared to 5,942). The fall in uses was larger for females (9 per cent) than for males (4 per cent).
• This report shows the progress we have made on the experimental collection information on Section 136 uses in police custody suites which we introduced last year. Experimental figures show that during 2012/13, an estimated 7,761 orders were made where the place of safety was a police custody suite, this accounts for at least 36 per cent of the overall estimated total of orders (21,814) made under Section 136 during 2012/13. This figure is 906 or 10 per cent lower than the estimated figure of 8,667 recorded during 2011/12. As well as improvements in accuracy, the reporting now includes additional information at regional level, and on those detainees who were under 18.
• New experimental analysis on uses of Section 136 from MHMDS includes information about what happens before and after Section 136 and the number of times individuals have been subject to Section 136 during the reporting period.

We are actively working to implement the recommendations of the Fundamental Review of Returns in reducing the burden on our data providers and are aiming to retire the KP90 as a data collection once it is demonstrable that alternative administrative data sources are capable of supporting the production of these statistics.

• We are expecting information on two of the known gaps in administrative data, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Learning Disability (LD) to flow in national data sets in 2014/15.
• This report includes new experimental analyses using MHMDS as the data source which build on the statistics introduced in 2011/12. It illustrates the richness of this source for producing Mental Health Act information and demonstrates the progress we have made since the last release. Note that basic information on people subject to The Act is now available routinely in our Monthly MHMDS Report.

Our snapshot count of people subject to The Act in this report suggests that Independent Sector providers are responsible for the care of over a quarter of detained patients at a point in time, yet our comparative analysis between the KP90 and MHMDS data sources identifies that some major independent sector groups are not submitting MHMDS as required.

(1) Place of safety in hospital figures above do not include uses in police stations, or alternative places of safety such as Local Authority provided residential accommodation or relatives of the subject of the Order.