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NHS Digital has released new figures on the use of NHS mental health services by adults and children from April 2020 to March 2021.

The Mental Health Bulletin 2020-21 publication provides the most detailed picture available of people who used NHS funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services in England and includes breakdowns such as age, gender, ethnicity and deprivation.

It provides separate tables on inpatient and out-patient numbers and includes figures on those receiving the highest level of care.

Key findings

• 2.80m people were known to be in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services at some point in the year.¹ 768,000 of these were under 18 years of age. This represents an overall drop of 2.6% from  2019-20, when 2.88m people were known to be in contact with the services.  This includes an increase of 0.5% in the number of under 18s, which rose from the 2019-20 figure of 764,000.
• This means that 5.0% of people in England were known to be in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services during this year. This is compared to 5.1% of people in 2019-20.
• 3.5% (97,000) of people known to be in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services spent time in hospital as part of being in contact with these services during 2020-21. This is compared to 3.6% (105,000) in 2019-20.

Figure 1: Proportion of the population known to be in contact with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services by gender and age group, 2020-21

Other information that can be found in the publication includes numbers on:

• Early intervention for psychosis
• Use of perinatal community services²
• Memory services for those with dementia
• People subject to restrictive interventions (including type of intervention)³

Read the full report

Mental Health Bulletin 2020-21 Annual Report

Notes for Editors

1. Figures that are presented as percentages are rounded to one decimal place. All figures over a million are rounded to the nearest 10,000. All figures between 100,000 and 1,000,000 are rounded to the nearest thousand.
2. A person is considered to be ‘in contact’ with services in this publication if they have had an open referral with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services during 2020-21. This may include referrals which did not result in an attendance with a service or treatment being received
3. Perinatal Mental Health Services include support for mental health problems which occur during pregnancy or in the first year following the birth of a child.
4. Restrictive interventions include physical restraint, chemical restraint, mechanical restraint seclusion and segregation.