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 6 September 2017 to Question 122675, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) women and (b) men detained under the provisions of the Mental Health Act 1983 who were the primary carers of children.

The Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) has introduced demographic information on age, gender and ethnicity that were previously uncollected. This information is contained in the annual report Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures: 2016-17, Experimental statistics, available at:

https://digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB30105

Information on whether patients are parents or carers is not collected in the MHSDS however, and it is not possible to provide an estimate of the number of people with such responsibilities.