Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS beds per 100,000 people were provided for mental health patients in each of the last 10 years.

This information is not available in the format requested. The table below shows the average daily number of mental health beds open overnight in each of the last 10 years, for all NHS trusts with mental health beds in England.

Source: NHS England KH03 return.

Since 2010-11 the data has been collected in a different format, therefore it cannot be directly compared with the data prior to 2010-11.

The Government has made it clear that beds must always be available for those who need them. We have set out in our Mandate to NHS England that plans must be put in place to ensure no one in mental health crisis will be turned away.

The first ever national Mental Health Crisis Care Concordat is a commitment by agencies to work together to improve care and support for people in mental health crisis. The Crisis Care Concordat makes it clear that local commissioners should commission a range of mental health services that respond rapidly and appropriately to a person in urgent need. We asked local areas to commit to and agree their own ‘Mental Health Crisis Declaration’ before the end of 2014. Every area in England agreed a Declaration by 23 December 2014 and work is now underway across the country to develop action plans detailing how local partners will improve crisis care for people of all ages. Progress with these plans can be seen at:

www.crisiscareconcordat.org.uk/