Publication, Part of Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics
Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance January 2025
Official statistics
Update to Metrics MHS156, MHS156a and MHS156b
Please note, an issue was uncovered with metrics MHS156a and MHS156b. These metrics were are as follows:
- MHS156 - Number of discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
- MHS156a - Total bed days for discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
- MHS156b - Mean Length of stay for discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
This was caused by a small number of hospital spells having multiple ward stays recorded on the day of discharge.
The data for MHS156, MHS156a and MHS156b has been reissued, however this data is based on the second cut of January data. As such this is denoted in the CSV file by the Adhoc label rather than the performance label. This means that some of the change seen will be caused by the multiple submission window model, and not necessarily caused by the revision in the methodology.
This issue was first addressed on 01/04/2025. A further update was added on 08/04/2025 to address a small number of records where the number of bed days was incorrect.
8 April 2025 09:00 AM
Summary
This publication provides the timeliest picture available of people using NHS funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services in England, excluding those who are solely in contact with Talking Therapies. 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 available in the Data Quality section, as well as within the Data Coverage and Data Quality VODIM and Integrity files available under 'Resources'.
Highlights
Release of 'End of Year Final' 2024-25 data
'End of Year Final' versions of the main monthly csv files for each month between April 2024 and March 2025, collected under MHSDS version 6, which reflect revised 2024-25 Multiple Submission Window Model submissions that occurred after 'Performance' monthly data had already been published are now available.
The following files will be re-issued using end-of-year 'final' data
- Monthly 'Main' csv
- Monthly 'Restrictive Interventions' csv
- Monthly 'Out of Area Placements' csv
- Monthly 'Mental Health Services Measures to support the Adult Social Care Outcome Framework' csv
- Monthly 'Referral Spells' csv
- Monthly 'Access and Waiting Times Reference Tables' csv
- Monthly 'Adult Social Care Outcome Framework' csv
- Monthly 'Time series' csv
- Monthly 'Time Series for Out of Area Placements' csv
The 24/25 data in the monthly time-series file to be issued for the January-25 reporting period will be based on final, end-of-year data.
Please refer to the relevant monthly publication pages available from the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics series page for further details and to access the 'End of Year Final' 2024-25 data.
Mental Health publications consultation
The consultation on the future of Mental Health reporting has now closed. This consultation covered the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, the Mental Health Bulletin and the Mental Health Act, Annual Figures publications.
If you have any further views that you would like to discuss, please email [email protected] including "Mental Health Publications feedback" in the subject.
Access the code used to create this report
The code used to create the outputs for this report is available on our NHS Digital GitHub webpage.
New Measures / Breakdowns
From the January 2025 performance publication, new metrics regarding length of stay have been made available. These metrics are as follows:
- MHS156 - Number of discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
- MHS156a - Total bed days for discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
- MHS156b - Mean Length of stay for discharges in the RP for people aged 18 and over from adult acute, older adult acute and PICU beds
Additionally, new contextual metrics are available in the referral spells file:
- MRS17 - Number of open CYP referral-spells that have had a full meaningful help clock stop at the end of the RP.
- MRS18 - Number of open CYP referral-spells with 1+ contact at the end of the RP.
- MRS19 - Proportion of open CYP referral-spells that have had a full meaningful help clock stop at the end of the RP.
- MRS20 - Number of open CMH referral-spells that have had a full meaningful help clock stop at the end of the RP.
- MRS21 - Number of open CMH referral-spells with 2+ contact at the end of the RP.
- MRS22 - Proportion of open CMH referral-spells that have had a full meaningful help clock stop at the end of the RP.
Finally, five new integrity measures have been added to the VODIM file which measure ethnicity and time recording in the MHS401 Mental Health Act table.
Key Facts
Key Facts Based on 'End of Year Final' data
- At the end of January, there were 2.04 million people were in contact with mental health services, at the end of January; the majority of these (1.34 million) were in contact with adult mental health services.
- There were 503,496 people in contact with children and young people’s mental health services and 297,080 in learning disabilities and autism services.
- 479,084 new referrals were received into services during January, and 2.39 million care contacts were attended.
- 22,713 people were subject to the Mental Health Act at the end of January, including 16,493 people detained in hospital.
Key Facts Based on 'Performance' data (superseded by 'End of Year Final' statistics)
- At the end of January, there were 2.00 million people in contact with services; the majority of these (1.34 million) were in adult mental health services.
- There were 493,691 people in contact with children and young people’s mental health services and 293,331 in learning disabilities and autism services.
- 459,546 new referrals were received into services during January, and 2.35 million care contacts were attended.
- 22,499 people were subject to the Mental Health Act at the end of January, including 16,347 people detained in hospital.
This is the tenth monthly release using data collected under MHSDS version 6. Please refer to the April 2024 publication for an outline of the changes to the dataset introduced by the move to MHSDS version 6. Full details of the changes to the dataset are available in the Technical Output Specification and the updated constructions for all measures in this publication are available in the metadata file.
Resources
Last edited: 26 August 2025 1:55 pm