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National Statistics
Publication, Part of

Inpatients Formally Detained in Hospitals Under the Mental Health Act 1983 and Patients Subject to Supervised Community Treatment, England - 2013-2014, Annual figures

Official statistics, National statistics
Publication Date:
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Country, Strategic Health Authorities, NHS Trusts, Primary Care Organisations, Care Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Government Office Regions, Independent Sector Health Care Providers, Regions
Date Range:
01 Apr 2003 to 31 Mar 2014

Summary

This bulletin presents the latest information on uses of the Mental Health Act 1983 ("The Act") in England (excluding guardianship under Sections 7 and 37) between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014 ("2013-14"). Data were collected via the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) online Omnibus KP90 collection from all organisations in England which provide Mental Health Services and make use of the Mental Health Act 1983 legislation, as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007, and other legislation. This includes high security psychiatric hospitals as well as other NHS service providers and independent hospitals.

These statistics are important in monitoring uses of The Act and will be of interest to mental health professionals as well as service users, their families and representative organisations.

Please note that the National Statistics status of this release has been withdrawn pending a successful transition between the existing data source (KP90) and a new data source (MHMDS and other administrative collections) being used as the basis for the statistics. Full details of this decision are in the assessment report and can be found on the UK Statistics Authority's website.

Please note: An error was discovered within the published machine readable csv file (Inpatients Formally Detained in Hospitals Under the Mental Health Act 1983 and Patients Subject to Supervised Community Treatment, England - 2013-2014, Annual figures: Machine-readable data set [.csv]) which was published 29th October 2014.  This error has now been corrected and updated on 7th November 2014. The HSCIC apologises for any inconvenience this may cause our users.

Please note: on 29 October 2014 an error was identified and rectified within Table 13: Detentions under Section 136 in hospital based Places of Safety recorded by Police and methods of conveyance to hospital, 2013-14 within the Experimental Data Tables.  This error was as a result of over-suppression of the percentage columns within this table.  The HSCIC apologies to users who may have been affected by this error.

Highlights

At the end of the 2013-14 reporting period (31 March 2014):

  • There were a total of 23,531 people subject to The Mental Health Act ('The Act'). Of these, 18,166 were detained in hospital on longer term hospital orders1 and 5,365 were being treated in the community on Community Treatment Orders (CTOs). The total is 6 per cent (1,324) more than at the end of the previous reporting period, and 32 per cent greater than at the end of 2008-09, the year CTOs were introduced.

During the 2013-14 reporting period:

  • The Act was used 53,176 times to detain patients in hospital for longer than 72 hours, 5 per cent (2,768) more than during the 2012-13 reporting period and 30 per cent more during 2003-04.
  • In 65 per cent (34,806) of cases, detentions were made on admission to hospital, but they were also made following a stay as an informal patient and/or a short term or emergency detention order had been used (14,087 cases), following a Section 136 order (2,882 cases) or following revocation of a CTO (1,401 cases).
  • Independent sector providers (ISPs) are increasingly being used to care for detained patients; overall 10 per cent (5,162) of longer-term detentions (lasting >72 hours) under The Act were in ISPs, which is 6 percentage points larger than ten years ago (4 per cent or 1,530). 82 per cent of detentions in ISPs were on admission compared with 64 per cent in NHS providers.
  • The number of new CTOs issued was 5 per cent lower than during the previous reporting year (4,434 compared with 4,647) suggesting that uptake following their introduction may now have levelled off. The number of people subject to CTOs (5,365) as a proportion of all those subject to The Act at the end of the year2 has increased since their introduction to 'level off' at around 23 per cent from March 2013 onwards. This compares to 17 per cent back in March 2010, after CTOs had been available for a year.

The figures show that the total number of Place of Safety Orders3 made has increased by 5 per cent (1,166) to 23,343 since 2012-13. Of the 23,036 Place of Safety orders made using Section 136, the proportion where the individual went to a hospital rather than a police custody based Place of Safety increased from 64 per cent (14,053) during 2012-13 to 74 per cent (17,008) this reporting year (reflecting an 21 per cent increase in uses of hospital based-, and a 24 per cent decrease in police custody based-, Place of Safety Orders).

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[1] The 2012-13 figure has been revised to include an estimated figure of 120 for British Transport Police so that totals for 2012-13 and 2013-13 are comparable.
[2] 'All subject to The Act' is a count of people on both longer-term and short term detentions plus those on Community Treatment Orders.
[3] 'Longer term hospital orders' refers to those lasting longer than 72 hours. It excludes uses of Section 4, 5(2), 5(4) and Place of Safety Orders in healthcare provider based Places of Safety under Sections 135 and 136.

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Last edited: 13 December 2021 7:28 am