Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason people with learning disabilities have been placed in the category of adults with serious mental illness in the Excess under 75 mortality rate data set in the May 2018 release of NHS Outcomes Framework Indicators.

The Excess under 75 mortality rate dataset defines adults with serious mental illness as “those who have been in contact with secondary mental health care services in the past three years”. This definition has not changed since the indicator was established in June 2012.

The data is, however, taken from the Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Dataset, which cannot distinctly divide activity into mental health or learning disability spells of care. This is because many people who have a learning disability use mental health services and people in learning disability services may have a mental health problem, so a single spell of care may include either or both types of service.