Acute care in numbers
England
- Over 1.25 million people used NHS specialist mental health services in 2009–10, an increase of 4% on the previous year which continues a rising trend (Mental Health Bulletin, Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2011).
- 107,765 people spent time as an inpatient in 2009/10, which was 8.5% of all those using specialist mental health services and the first increase since 2003/04 (Inpatients formally detained under Mental Health Act, Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2011).
- There were 16,647 people detained in hospital at 31 March 2011, an increase of 0.2% on the previous year (Inpatients formally detained under Mental Health Act, Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2011).
- 39.4% of those who spent time in hospital in 2009/10 were detained under the Mental Health Act – an increase of 7.6% on the previous year (Mental Health Bulletin, Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2011).
- 66% of black people who spent time in hospital in 2009/10 were detained compared with 54% the previous year (Mental Health Bulletin, Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2011).
- Total investment in adult mental health services in 2010/11 was £6.55 billion, an increase of 3.6% on the previous year, of which £266.1m was spent on crisis resolution and home treatment, and £653m on acute wards (Department of Health, 2011).
- £224 million is the annual amount of national gross savings that could be made by 2014/15 by improving the acute care pathway and reducing inpatient bed usage in areas where it is high (Department of Health, 2011).
Wales
- There were 1,764 mental health inpatients in Wales at 31 March 2011 (Welsh Government, 2011).
- There were 594 people detained in hospital under the Mental Health Act at 31 March 2011 (34% of patients) compared with 442 (20%) in 2001 (Welsh Government, 2011).
- 38% of refugees living in Wales said that their mental health had deteriorated since coming to the UK (Crawley and Crimes, 2009).