Statistics on people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals, AT: April 2026, MHSDS: March 2026

Between October 2021 and March 2024, these statistics were derived from submissions made using version 5.0 of MHSDS.  From April 2024 onwards, they are derived from submissions made using version 6.0 of MHSDS

This release comprises:

• A summary of findings which presents provider level analysis of key measures based on data submitted.
• Excel data tables covering a wide range of data covered by the collection. 
• A monthly CSV file which presents key measures at provider level based on data submitted.

The MHSDS was introduced on the 1 January 2016 and superseded the following standards:  

• ISB 0011 Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Dataset (MHLDDS)
• ISB 1072 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Dataset
• ISB 1509 Mental Health Care Cluster
• ISB 1078 Mental Health Clustering Tool

The changes incorporate requirements in support of Children and Young People's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT), elements of the Learning Disabilities Census (LDC) and elements of the Assuring Transformation (AT) Information Standard.  Information provided in this release therefore covers, learning disabilities and autism services for all ages. Learning disabilities and autism services have been included in MHSDS (and its previous guises) since September 2014.

The measures reported in this publication are usually badged as experimental statistics and will be released as such, until the characteristics of data flowed using the current data standard are fully understood. Experimental statistics are official statistics which are published in order to involve users and stakeholders in their development and as a means to build in quality at an early stage. It is important that users understand that limitations may apply to the interpretation of this data.

As a result of the cyber incident that occurred in July 2022, several providers of mental health data were affected, so MHSDS national and ICB level data from August 2022 to March 2023 was not published in the monthly Learning Disabilities and Autism publication.

Due to data remediation work that has been undertaken in the interim with the affected providers, we will now be publishing MHSDS national and ICB level data again from April 2023 onwards. 

Further information on people using NHS funded secondary mental health services can  be found within the main MHSDS monthly publication.

Information is presented by hospital spells and ward stays in this report. A hospital spell is a continuous period of inpatient care under a single Hospital Provider starting with a hospital admission and ending with a discharge from hospital. A ward stay is within a hospital spell so one hospital spell could include more than one ward stay for a patient if they have moved wards. The counts of hospital spells are therefore different to the count of ward stays and would expect the count of ward stays to be greater. However, submissions have to include hospital spell information but not necessarily ward stay information. Where the number of ward stays are less than hospital spells, this indicates that information about the ward where patients were receiving care was not provided for everyone in hospital. Despite the limitations of the ward stay information, it is still used in the report as it provides more detailed information than hospital spells about the episode of care.

Figures on the use of restrictive interventions for people with a learning disability and autistic people in inpatient services from MHSDS are subject to a number of data quality issues (see Data Quality Section for further information). Therefore, these figures should be interpreted with caution.

From the July 2022 publication onwards, the methodology used within the restrictive interventions measures will include the changes described in the Restrictive Intervention Statistics Methodological change paper.

From October 2024 activity onwards, MHSDS Restrictive Interventions Performance data is reported from submissions made in the month following the activity period, rather than the second month.

As such, there will no longer be a time lag in the reporting of MHSDS Restrictive Interventions data (Tables 15-18) within this publication compared with all other MHSDS data.