Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his oral contribution of 15 November 2016, what his evidential basis is for his statement on the number of people currently being treated by mental health services relative to the number in 2010.

Pursuant to my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health’s oral contribution of 15 November 2016 (HC Orals Topical Questions Vol 617 c121), the number of people in contact with National Health Service funded secondary mental health services and learning disability services is reported in the Mental Health Services Dataset, which is managed and published by NHS Digital.

Annual reports show that the number of people in contact with NHS providers went from 1,285,594 in 2010/11 to 1,812,549 in 2014/15 (the latest annual data published). This is a difference of 526,955, which divided by 365 days in one year gives an average of around 1,400 extra people per day in contact with services in 2014/15 in relation to 2010/11.