This annual report relates to data extracted from Mental Health Minimum Data Set (MHMDS) for activity undertaken within the financial year 2012-13.

Key facts

• There were nearly 1.6 million (1,590,332) people in contact with specialist mental health services in 2012/13, a decrease of 16,821 (from 1,607,153) in 2011/12
• Over 1.5 million (1,567,2111) people were in contact with specialist mental health services (aged 18 and over) in 2012/13 and the rate of access to services is 3,761 per 100,000 population (approximately one person in 27 in England), this was similar to last year (2011/12).
• The largest age group (10 year age bands) are those aged 40-49 who represent 16.0 per cent (254,017) of all mental health service users; the next largest group are those people aged 80-89 who represent 15.5 per cent (246,333) of all service users.
• Females aged 90 or over are most likely to be a service user as a proportion of their overall population (16,827 per 100,000, or around 1 in 6 of their respective population).
• Over a third (35.6 per cent) of people who use specialist mental health services are aged 65 or over (566,209). This is more than double the proportion who are aged 65 or over in the general population (16.3 per cent of people).
• There were 105,224 service users that spent time in hospital (6.6 per cent of all service users) 8.0 per cent of males spent time in hospital, compared with 5.5 per cent of females.
• Of those people who spent time in hospital 45.6 per cent were subject to the Mental Health Act (‘the Act’) at some point in the year. Males aged 18-35 were most likely (56.1 per cent) to be subject to ‘the Act’.
• A special feature in this year’s report looks at a new linked dataset (based on MHMDS and HES2) focusing specifically on self-harm.
• There were 53,273 individual service users, who were also admitted to hospital at least once in the year as a consequence of self-harm in 2012/13
• Nearly half (25,009) were already known to mental health services prior to 2012/13
• There were a total of 76,232 episodes of care that related to self-harm for these service users (an average of 1.4 per individual)
• Nearly a third (25,152) of these inpatient episodes of care are related to intentional self-poisoning using over the counter drugs such as Paracetamol, Aspirin and Ibuprofen.
• There were 225,672 A&E attendances for these service users (those who had been admitted for self-harm within the year), averaging 4.3 A&E attendances (per individual).

Download the report