Compulsorily Detained Psychiatric Patients

(asked on 26th February 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Digital figures for the number of detentions under the Mental Health Act for 2017-18 referred to on page 11 of the CQC report entitled Monitoring the Mental Health Act in 2017-18, what steps he is taking to address the underreporting of such detentions.


Answered by
Jackie Doyle-Price Portrait
Jackie Doyle-Price
This question was answered on 4th March 2019

NHS Digital is working in co-ordination with other arm’s length bodies to improve the reporting of detentions under the Mental Health Act 1983.

The official source of detentions changed from the KP90 aggregate collection to the administrative data source Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) from 2016-17 data. Submission to the MHSDS is mandatory for all National Health Service and independent providers that detain patients under the Mental Health Act. The Information Standards Notice makes it a statutory duty for NHS funded mental health services to submit this data to MHSDS.

To support data quality improvement, NHS Digital provides data quality feedback to providers via reports when MHSDS submissions are made, followed by additional feedback to providers in the monthly data submission cycle. Further improvements to this feedback are being planned.

NHS Digital provides comprehensive technical guidance documentation to support the accurate completion of MHSDS data. Providers and suppliers are kept updated with developments via regular workshops and newsletters.

NHS Digital is supporting the Care Quality Commission in their ongoing work to contact former KP90 submitters that have failed to make submissions to the MHSDS about their detentions. This work will provide more detail on the reasons for non-submission and we will work with partners to resolve the issues identified.

Further information is available in ‘Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures: Background Data Quality Report England, 2017-18’, which is available at the following link:

https://files.digital.nhs.uk/3C/C59157/ment-heal-act-stat-eng-2017-18-back-data-qual-rep.pdf

Reticulating Splines