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Request received
Request received for early release of Mental Health statistics based on February 2021 Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS) data to aid understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on mental health services.
Our response
Care should be taken when interpreting these statistics as the data quality of provisional data is not as complete as performance data and it will cover a lower set of providers. As such the data will be limited to providing a large sample of provider activity across the country but not a full national picture. This is because provisional data is based on the initial submission from providers to the MHSDS. The submission process encourages one month for an initial submission and a second month for more complete submissions where data quality and completeness can be improved. There is no obligation to provide the primary submission and so a number of providers provide a single submission in the second month. The earlier primary submission is used to provide more timely information on service activity.
From Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics Performance January, Provisional February 2021 onwards:
- Several EIP measures have had ethnicity added as a secondary breakdown. This is currently available at England level only. Provider and CCG level ethnicity breakdowns will be included in subsequent releases of this publication.
- A range of children and young people with eating disorders measures have been added to the monthly release, all measures cover a rolling 3-month reporting period.
The usual, accompanying data quality and guidance information is not included here. This information will be published alongside these statistics (and others) in the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics Performance January, Provisional February 2021 publication released Thursday 08/04/2021.