Publication, Part of Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics
Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance March 2026
Official statistics
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
Changes being implemented for 2026-27 reporting onwards
The following changes are being implemented for the April 2026 publication:
- Children's eating disorders metrics are being updated to reflect an updated methodology. Further information on the changes to the methodology can be found here, with an updated guide to submitting children's eating disorder data being found here.
- New ICB boundary changes came into effect from April 1 2026. We are aiming to reflect these changes in the April 2026 performance publication. Further information on these boundary changes can be found here.
Additionally, following the consultation around the future of the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics publication, the following changes will be implemented:
- Formatted Excel files will no longer be included in the publication. Associated CSV files will continue to be published.
- The following metrics will be removed from the publication:
- EIP64 - Referrals not on EIP pathway, receiving a first contact and assigned a care co-ordinator with any team
- EIP65 - Referrals not on EIP pathway, receiving a first contact and assigned a care co-ordinator with any team more than two weeks after referral
- EIP66 - Referrals not on EIP pathway, receiving a first contact and assigned a care co-ordinator with any team two weeks or less after referral
- EIP67 - Proportion of referrals not on EIP pathway receiving a first contact and assigned a care co-ordinator with any team two weeks or less after referral
- EIP69a - Number of open Referrals with any valid SNOMED-CT activity submitted that were linked to an EIP team in the reporting period; and/or
- EIP69b - Number of open Referrals with any NICE concordant EIP SNOMED-CT activity submitted that were linked to an EIP team in the reporting period.
- Metrics relating to the number of "people in contact with services" will be renamed to "people with an open referral". This change is being made to better reflect the fact that not all people with an open referral have received a contact at the end of the reporting period.
Contact Us
If you have any views or feedback that you would like to discuss with us, 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.
2.12 million people were in contact with mental health services, at the end of March
The majority of these (1.41 million) were in contact with adult mental health services
521,201 people were in contact with children and young people’s mental health services, at the end of March
301,720 people were in contact with learning disabilities and autism services, at the end of March
500,517 new referrals were received, and 2.43 million care contacts were attended, during March
22,693 people were subject to the Mental Health Act, including 15,901 people detained in hospital, at the end of March
Resources
Last edited: 14 May 2026 9:31 am