Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 June 2025 to Question 60400 on Mental Health Services, how many referrals made to mental health services in (a) 2021-22, (b) 2022-23 and (c) 2023-24 by primary reason for referral are still waiting to receive a first treatment appointment in each (i) NHS Trust, (ii) NHS Integrated Care Board and (iii) NHS England region as of 24 June 2025.

A document containing two tables showing the number of referrals received for mental health services, excluding NHS Talking Therapies, by primary reason for referral, and the number of referrals received for NHS Talking Therapies services by presenting complaint, sorted by provider, integrated care board (ICB), and NHS England region, from 2021/22 to 2023/24, is attached.

We do not hold information on presenting conditions for people referred to NHS Talking Therapies who are waiting for a first contact. This is because the first contact will involve an initial assessment which includes, amongst other activity: discussing the patient’s view of the current main problem(s) and the impact on their life; exploring the patient's history of mental health problems; an exploration of any psychological processes that are likely to maintain the patient’s presenting problems; an exploration of any adverse circumstances that maintain a patient’s presenting symptoms; identification of the appropriate problem descriptor(s); and the completion of the NHS Talking Therapies Data Set. Until this initial assessment contact has taken place, any presenting conditions are not recorded. Unlike the Mental Health Services Data Set, within NHS Talking Therapies a 'reason for referral' accompanying the initial referral to the service is not separately recorded.

Caution should be used when interpreting this data. Comparisons at low levels and between providers may not be reflective of the performance of the provider due to high levels of suppressed values due to small numbers. Primary reason for referral is not a mandatory field and completeness levels can be relatively low and vary between providers. Furthermore, if a provider has a small number of people in a specific category, a seemingly large difference between two providers might not be statistically significant and could be due to random chance. Comparisons over time should also be interpreted with caution, as completeness in the dataset has improved over time, with the numbers of providers increasing year on year, which will impact comparisons.