Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics, Performance March 2026

From the Provisional April 2023 data onwards, all metrics in the publication are being published in both the performance and provisional files. This is to support a move towards a single submission window towards the end of 2023.

The single submission window would mean that instead of reporting both performance and provisional data, just one cut of data would be taken. The submission window would be increased meaning that providers have longer to submit the data but that the data published would effectively be the provisional data.

For reporting pre April-24, the average minutes of restraint are calculated for restraints that started and ended in the month. As a result, for some restraint types, specifically seclusion and segregation, this can lead to averages that do not represent all uses of the restraint types. This is because these restraint types can occur over long periods of time, and as such cross months.

From April 2024 data onwards, these metrics will be amended to calculate the average minutes of restraint for all restraints that ended in the month. Additionally, 6 new restrictive intervention measures (MHS98a, MHS138a, MHS146, MHS146a, MHS147 and MHS147a) will be included that show the average number days (as median and mean) for incidents of seclusion and segregation that remain open at the end of the reporting period.

Full details of the methodological changes made for this publication can be found here. Changes to the code used to produce this publication are also reflected on GitHub and in the associated Metadata file.

The Uses of Section 136 reported in this publication are those relating to a designated health-based place of safety in mental health services. People can also be taken to other places of safety including Emergency Departments and police stations, which are reported elsewhere, so MHSDS does not provide a complete picture of s136 activity. In addition, not all providers are submitting complete data on Section 136 to MHSDS. The data quality dashboard provides a summary of what data providers are submitting to MHSDS.

The December 2026 performance publication onwards includes data relating to mean deviation. Mean deviation is presented as a way of understanding inequalities within ethnic groups within a specific area. To calculate mean deviation, the absolute difference in standardised rates between the White upper ethnic group and each other individual upper ethnic group is calculated. The mean of these differences is then calculated and presented as mean deviation. 

As part of the December publication, these metrics are presented for CYP Access (MHS95d), Detentions (MHS157d) and CTOs (MHS158d). 

Referral Spell methodology

As part of the September 2024 Performance publication in the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics publication series, a new set of metrics will be introduced which utilise a new methodology which groups sets of individual referrals into a referral spell. Using this methodology, a spell is defined as starting at the point the first referral that is in scope is received by a provider. From this point, other referrals can form part of a referral spell where they are open concurrently or where the next referral opens within 5 days of the previous referral ending. A spell is closed when the last referral is recorded as closed (using the service discharge date).

Only referrals which fall within the inclusion and exclusion criteria will make up the referral spell. Where a person has other open referrals within the same provider that are not in scope for either of the two pathways, these referrals will not be included in the spell.

Data which utilises the referral spell methodology will be published in a separate CSV file in the Mental Health Monthly Statistics publication and also will be denoted by Metric IDs that begin with “MRS”.

Full details can be found in the methodological change notice here

From November 2024 data onwards, some small changes to the methodology have been introduced. These include: 

1. Incorporating REFERRAL REJECTION DATE and REFERRAL CLOSURE DATE in the referral-spell derivation section where SERVICE DISCHARGE DATE is not available.
2. Depreciated crisis team type codes have been excluded from the CYP metric, excluding historic referrals with a team type of either A03 (Crisis Resolution Team) or A04 (Home Treatment Service).

NHS England is aware that some digital providers are flowing Outcomes data. Currently, the methodology used makes no attempt to account for the differences in these provider’s data.

In these cases, data supplied is often insufficient to derive a consistent Person ID. As a result, the data is not truly reflective of this activity as only instances where paired scores occurred in the same month would be captured. Consequently, the paired score was not necessarily the first and last scores in the persons referral. If a provider captures sufficient data to derive a consistent Person ID, there should be no issue in the data.

Work is ongoing to determine the best way to handle digital provider data within the CYP Outcomes metrics. Any future changes will be pre-announced through a methodological change notice.

Following the implementation of version 6 of MHSDS, some small changes have been made to the data quality metrics presented in the VODIM file within this publication:

• The construction of DQM09 has changed to reflect the fact that the Ward Site ID is now captured in the MHS903 Ward Details table. The calculation remains unchanged but the data is joined to the Ward Stay table from the MHS903 table.
• DQM45 has been removed following the removal of the Provisional diagnosis table from the dataset. 
• DQM51 has been adjusted to use data from either MHS101 or MHS102 as this data is now captured in both tables. Previously only MHS102 was used in this metric.