Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures, 2023-24

The MHSDS data can be analysed to show how many times a person was detained during a given period.

Our analysis shows that in 2023-24, 84.4 per cent of detained people were detained once. A further 13 per cent of people were detained twice during this period. Only 2.6 per cent of people were detained more than twice during 2023-24. These results are similar to last year.

Although the overall detention rate was lower for females than for males, a greater proportion of detained females than males were detained more than once in 2023-24 (16.4 per cent compared to 14.8 per cent). People categorised as other genders were detained more than once in 2023-24 more in terms of percentage than both males and females. With 34.6 per cent of the Indeterminate group being detained more than once. Percentages for Non-binary, Other (not listed) and Indeterminate may be affected by small numbers.

Amongst age groups, the 18 to 34 group had both the highest rate of detention and the highest rate of detained people subject to repeated detention.

In 2023-24, 18.4 per cent of detained people aged 18 to 34 were detained more than once. Adult rates decline with age, for these broad age groups.

Amongst broad ethnic groups, 17.9 per cent of Black or Black British detainees were detained more than once. This group had the highest percentage of people detained more than once followed by the Mixed ethnicity group (17.4 per cent).