Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the increase in the number of non-Covid-19 related deaths of patients treated under the Mental Health Act 1983 within NHS and independent settings in the 12 months to March 2021.

Providers have a legal duty to notify the Care Quality Commission (CQC) of deaths of people detained, or liable to be detained, under the Mental Health Act 1983.

In the twelve months up to March 2021, the CQC were notified that there were 363 such deaths, including 268 from natural causes, of which 114 were identified as caused by COVID-19. In the previous twelve months to March 2020, the number of deaths notified to the CQC was 240, of which 143 were from natural causes. The data therefore suggests that COVID-19 has been a significant factor in the increase of natural cause deaths in 2020/21.