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.
• Annual statistics
This publication includes annual statistics for the 2019-20 reporting year. Included are the number of People in contact with services - April 2019 to March 2020, and the number of People in contact with services with a hospital provider spell - April 2019 to March 2020, with age group breakdowns for both counts. In addition, the number of children and young people accessing NHS funded community mental health services - April 2019 to March 2020 are published here for the first time (additional information on this measure is included below). Further annual statistics will be published in the annual Mental Health Bulletin.
• Children and young people’s access to mental health services, annual statistics
For 2019-20, following the introduction of the multiple submission window model (MSWM), increased providers submissions, data quality improvements and developments to the children and young people’s access measure, NHS Digital are publishing the children and young people’s access to mental health services, annual statistics, based on MHSDS within this publication (MHS69 - The number of children and young people, regardless of when their referral started, receiving at least two contacts (including indirect contacts) and where their first contact occurs before their 18th birthday).
In 2017-18 and 2018-19 NHS Digital published the results of the CYP Validation exercise, a separate collection jointly developed and commissioned by NHS Digital and NHS England and NHS Improvement, in order to produce the most accurate picture of national end of year position for children and young people’s access to mental health service. The results of the validation exercise were the official statistic and superseded all other statistics produced throughout the year. These publications are available within this publication series.
• Early release of statistics
To support the ongoing COVID-19 work March 2020 monthly statistics were made available early and presented on our supplementary information pages.
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/supplementary-information/2020/final-march-2020-mental-health-statistics
• Children and young people’s access to mental health services and the Multiple Submission Window Model
Additional analysis has been undertaken, investigating the impact of the multiple submission window model (MSWM) on the Children and young people’s access to mental health services measure, this analysis will be available on our supplementary information pages.
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/supplementary-information
• Perinatal analysis
Quarterly perinatal analysis has been included within this publication for the first time since the Final March 2019 publication. All quarters for 2019-20 have also now been published in their respective monthly publications.
• Multiple Submission Window Model (MSWM)
From April 2020 NHS Digital implemented a multiple submission window model for MHSDS which enabled the resubmission of data throughout the financial year. Following the implementation of the multiple submission window model providers were optionally able to submit/resubmit data for each month of 2019-20 from April 2020 to 21 May 2020.
The opportunity to resubmit data for each month of 2019-20 between April 2019 and February 2020 has impacted on the statistics already published for these months. March 2020 statistics, published here, have not been impacted as the opportunity to submit/resubmit data and the submission window for Final March 2020 data coincided. As of January 2021, the statistics for these months are now available within the individual monthly publication pages.
Please be aware of the potential impact of the multiple submission window model on previously published data and use these statistics with reference to it. Further information can be found on the NHS Digital Multiple submission window model for MHSDS webpage.
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/data-collections-and-data-sets/data-sets/mental-health-services-data-set/multiple-submission-window-model-for-mhsds
• Additional contextual information from providers unable to complete submissions during the 2019-20 reporting year
Providers who were unable to make full use of the multiple submission window model before its close on 21 May 2020 were invited to provide additional information to aid in the understanding of the Official Statistics and this information is presented in the Additional Provider Information Excel file.
• Changing existing measures
The move to MHSDS version 4.1 from April 2020 brings with it changes to the dataset; the construction of a number of measures have been changed as a result. Improvements in the methodology of reporting delay of discharge has also resulted in a change in the construction of the measure from the April 2020 publication onwards.
Full details of these changes and how these changes will impact interpretation of statistics across reporting years will be presented in the April 2020 publication.
• New measures
A number of new measures will be included in the forthcoming publications in the 2020-21 reporting year:
MHS76 Count of people subject to restrictive interventions
MHS77 Count of restrictive interventions
MHS78 Discharges from adult acute beds eligible for 72 hour follow up in the reporting period
MHS79 Discharges from adult acute beds followed up within 72 hours in the reporting period
MHS80 Proportion of discharges from adult acute beds eligible for 72 hour follow up - followed up in the reporting period
Full details of these new measures (construction, breakdowns, etc.) will be presented within this publication series in the month the new measure is first published.
• Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) waiting times information
The Data Collection Board (DCB) has now approved the decommissioning of the interim collection of Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) waiting times information, known as NHS England Unify Collection within this publication. Waiting times for EIP for October 2019 activity onwards are now monitored using data from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS).