Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Statistics Monthly Report: Final September and October and Provisional November

This release of data shows that at the end of October 2014:

• 961,455 people were in contact with mental health or learning disabilities services. Of these, 920,229 people were in contact with mental health services and 52,143 people were in contact with learning disabilities services. These two figures combined are higher than the total, as a person may be in contact with both services.
• 23,975 people were inpatients in hospital (2.5 per cent). 1,871 people were in hospital on wards for people with learning disabilities. The remaining 22,104 people were in hospital on wards for people with mental health needs.
• 16,746 people were subject to the Mental Health Act 1983 and of these 12,375 were detained in hospital (73.9 per cent) and 4,258 were subject to a CTO (25.4 per cent).
• 59.2 per cent of people aged 18-69, who were being treated under the Care Programme Approach, were recorded as being in settled accommodation, while 6.8 per cent were recorded as being employed

During October 2014

• 74,555 new spells of care began.
• There were 10,531 new admissions to hospital.
• Of those who were discharged from hospital during the month, 74.5 per cent received a follow up within 7 days from the same provider. This is an important suicide prevention measure.

Mental health currencies and payment

• 681,146 people were in scope for currencies and payment at the end of October 2014. Of these, 558,320 (82 per cent) were assigned to a care cluster.
• There were 20,132 initial care cluster assignments during October 2014. Of these, 11,077 (55 per cent) met the red rules for that care cluster.
• 568,041 care cluster episodes were assigned to people who were in scope for currencies and payment at the end of October 2014. Of these, 415,989 (73.2 per cent) were within the review period for that care cluster.

Between the start of April 2014 and the end of October 2014

• 1,490,984 people have had contact with secondary mental health and learning disability services and of
  these 74,236 (5.0 per cent) had spent at least one night as an inpatient in hospital.

Key findings from the special feature on the distance to treatment for people in hospital include:

• The average distance travelled to treatment was 22.0km, with a median of 6.6km.
• The majority of people had a distance to treatment of less than 10 kilometres (60.3%, 9,115 people). For over 1 in 10 people (11.0 per cent, 1,665 people) the distance was over 50km and for 1 in 20 (5.1 per cent, 778 people) the distance was 100km or more.
• Over a third (4,525) of the 12,007 people in mental health beds were in acute inpatient beds for working age adults and 3.8 per cent (172 people) from this group travelled over 50km to treatment.
• 2.2 per cent (35) of people in older adult mental health beds (1,561 in total) travelled over 50km to treatment.
• Distances travelled were greater for the 3,091 people being treated in secure mental health services ranging from 19.0 per cent (246) in low secure to 69.6 per cent (289) of people in high secure travelling more than 50km.
• Greater distances were also linked to legal status and length of stay:

- People with a distance to treatment of 100km or more had a median length of stay in hospital of 493.0 days compared to those with a distance to treatment of less than 10km who had a median of 99.0 days.

- Approximately 1 in 7 (14.5 per cent or 1,358) of the 9,357 people detained under the Mental Health Act were in hospital at a distance of more than 50km, compared with 1 in 20 (5.4 per cent or 333) of informal inpatients.

• The five providers with the highest proportion of its patients travelling 100km or more were all Independent Sector providers.