Understanding the mental health of people across the United Kingdom is essential for ensuring that government policies and health resources are targeted effectively. Back in 2019, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) began a major piece of work looking at mental health statistics across the UK. This was initially prompted by increasing public interest in mental health. Much has happened since we started this work, including most noticeably the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ever now, high-quality data and statistics on mental health are vital for understanding people’s experiences, identifying gaps in services and planning improvements.
Since we started this work, we have published reviews of mental health statistics in both England and Northern Ireland, as well as a follow-up for England and blogs from producers in both England and Northern Ireland. Most recently, in January this year, we published our review of mental health statistics in Wales.
Our findings so far
Understanding mental health statistics across the UK can be confusing, as each nation collects and publishes information differently. This blog looks at the current state of mental health statistics in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, highlighting what’s done well and where improvement is needed, and what this means for users of the statistics. Our findings have highlighted a few core themes across the nations:
- There are important gaps in the statistics – for example, there is not enough information about how many people have mental health conditions, what treatment they receive and what outcomes they experience. Users often struggle to answer even their core questions from the published data.
- Data aren’t joined up – the data don’t follow a person’s journey through the mental health system, making it hard to understand what kind of support works best. There is a clear need for stronger data linkage across healthcare settings (primary, secondary, community) and for more data that follow individuals over the long-term.
- Statistics are hard to find and use – people often struggle to locate the data and statistics they need, and to navigate different websites, and the strengths and limitations of published statistics and what they can and can’t be used for aren’t always clearly explained.
The state of mental health statistics across the three nations
England: The most developed system, but still with gaps
England has the largest and most-established mental health datasets of the three nations we have looked at. Data collection is mandatory: providers of NHS-funded care must submit data to national datasets including the Mental Health Services Dataset and NHS Talking Therapies. This allows for broad coverage of service activity and means a wide range of statistics are available on prevalence, service use and treatment.
NHS England has also developed a Mental Health Data Hub to address concerns around difficulties accessing and understanding the published statistics. The data hub provides links to a variety of statistical publications and dashboards from a number of organisations.
However, the data still don’t give a full picture of someone’s care journey, especially across different types of services. The quality of statistics can also be impacted by variation in adherence to data submission standards and differing data submission systems across providers. NHS England has done a lot of work to identify and start to address quality issues since our initial review.
Northern Ireland: Longstanding gaps, but major improvements underway
Historically, Northern Ireland has had a lack of reliable mental health data, and systems across the country have been inconsistent. This has limited the availability of official statistics and, in turn, user insight. Northern Ireland’s Mental Health Strategy (2021-2031) highlights its intention to develop a Mental Health Outcomes Framework. Such a framework ‘will help in the evaluation of what works and will ensure services are provided that deliver good outcomes for people while providing value for money.’
Northern Ireland is currently investing in a new electronic patient record system called Encompass. This system is being introduced to create a single digital care record for every citizen in Northern Ireland who receives health and social care. This should help standardise data in the future.
Wales: Data at a crossroads, with plans to improve but barriers to success
Our review of mental health statistics in Wales found that there is limited mental health data in Wales, with gaps on topics such as prevalence, outcomes and inequalities. Different health boards also use different systems, meaning that the data they submit are often inconsistent across the health boards. There is no legal requirement for health boards to submit data to a standard dataset.
Statisticians in the Welsh Government have developed a mental health dashboard that brings existing data together into one place, but both statisticians and users emphasise the need for more person-level, outcomes-focused data.
To address these issues, the Welsh Government has proposed a national core mental health dataset that would link data across different services to track people throughout their care journey. However, progress on this dataset has been slow due to funding issues, IT limitations and the lack of legal requirement for all health boards to take part.
What’s next for OSR’s mental health work?
We have not yet examined mental health statistics in Scotland. We first plan to carry out a scoping exercise to determine what statistics already exist, their quality and what value they provide for users. Our next steps will be shaped by the findings of this exercise.
We will also continue to monitor progress in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and highlight the need for improvements such as increased availability of data, better data linkage, clearer standards, staff support and improved access to data.