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 18 July 2022 to Question 33842 on Autism and Hyperactivity: Compulsorily Detained Psychiatric Patients, further to WPQ 33842, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of collecting data on detention under the Mental Health Act 1983 of people with (a) autism, (b) ADHD and (c) Asperger's Syndrome; and what steps he is taking to ensure that such detention is being used proportionately.

We have no plans to make a specific assessment. The NHS Digital Assuring Transformation collection records data on people with a learning disability and autistic people who are inpatients in mental health hospitals and whose care is commissioned by commissioners in England. It collects the person’s status under the Mental Health Act 1983 and data on whether a person has a learning disability or is autistic. Since April 2021, further details of a person’s diagnosis on admission and additional diagnoses post-admission has been recorded. This includes whether a person has a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the published data does not currently provide information on condition or diagnosis by status under the Mental Health Act.

The proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act aim to ensure that patients will only be detained if there will be a therapeutic benefit from the treatment allowed for by the detention. This is designed to ensure care and treatment provided under the Act will promote and facilitate recovery and allow patients to be discharged as soon as possible.

In addition we are working with NHS Digital and NHS England to improve data on autism and ADHD, including improving the quality of relevant datasets such as the Mental Health Services Dataset and the Community Services dataset.