Mental Health
Good mental health is more than the absence or management of mental health problems and illnesses; it is the foundation for wellbeing and both for individuals and for their communities. Data is available about a wide range of mental health problems and illnesses, who it affects and the take- up and effectiveness of healthcare services. Local plans are available about improving health and wellbeing.
There is a wealth of data available about young people’s mental health. This is mainly:
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data collected about young people’s experiences and behaviours - which is collected at national level, usually through surveys by the NHS or charities
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data about how services are being accessed, used, and measured - which is collected at local level, usually by the NHS.
Key places to start
For a national-level picture of young people’s experience and needs, two key sources are the NHS Mental Health of Children and Young people in England survey, and the Office for National Statistics' Young people's well-being measures. The questions and methodologies for both are open access. Some organisations have had success running surveys in their local area or with a specific group of young people using the same questions in order to compare to national averages.
At local level, detailed information is available through The Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSD) which is updated monthly for all Clinical Commissioning Groups and service providers. While the Mental Health Services Monthly Statistics Dashboard is relatively easy to use, it is extremely detailed.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists provides easily navigable and comparable summaries that draw from the MHSD and other sources through its Mental Health Watch platform.
Things to consider:
The statistics available in the Mental Health Services Data Set offer a very detailed view of service provision, but not of real prevalence of mental health issues in a community. Services that are accessible and perceived by young people as high quality and effective may see more referrals than services which are perceived poorly. Some services may use different criteria and/or permit diagnosis at different ages.
Note that rates of accessing mental health treatment differs between demographics, with women more likely to receive treatment than males, and white British people more likely to receive treatment than ethnic minorities. Levels of access to treatment may not reflect prevalence of need. Information and statistics about this issue are available through the Mental Health Foundation.
Example
Steve is increasingly worried about the mental health of young people at the youth service he manages, especially those recently arrived in the UK.
Looking on Mental Health Watch, Steve finds that local hospital admissions for self-harm among 10-24 year olds are much higher than the national average. Steve also finds national data showing that people from the ethnic groups his service works with are more likely to use mental health services.
By combining these local and national data sources, Steve feels better equipped to make the case for more specialist mental health support for young people in his area.
Data sources
What this is:
A hub of publications and dashboards offering key indicators on service use, detention rates, and outcomes. Not all are specifically relevant to young people but key statistics including people in contact with children’s and young people’s mental health services, open referrals for children’s and young people’s mental health services can be found and explored in context.
Who:
The Population of England (age ranges vary according to indicator- some are specific to young people)
Where:
Data is available at Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) level and for individual service providers, with averages for England available to compare.
When:
Dashboard data is updated monthly. Additional information is available through annual reports.
How to use:
The Mental health data hub offers a lot of resources, segmented into ‘statistical publications’ which give monthly and annual reports of findings from different datasets, including the mental health of children and young people surveys.
The ‘dashboards’ section provides several tools to explore the data.
‘Mental health services monthly statistics’ is the most extensive, with many useful indicators; of particular relevance is the number of young people in contact with mental health services broken down by region or CCG, updated monthly.
Other dashboards are more specific; the Recorded uses of the Mental Health Act will let you explore rates of people being detained under the mental health act per 100,000 population broken down by age, gender and ethnicity. Another covers access, use, and outcomes of psychological therapies broken down by CCG.
What this is:
An overview of the health needs of a community, including both clinical needs and services and the risk factors and “wider determinants of health” such as poverty and environmental factors. A one-stop shop for local mental health information and wider health and demographic data.
Joint Strategic Needs Assessments are developed together by the Local Authority and the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group, and overseen by the local Health & Wellbeing Board which includes statutory and voluntary sector representatives.
Detailed statistics drawing on a wide range of different data sources, possibly including local NHS service monitoring and additional research commissioned locally, as well as some of the sources included here.
Who it includes:
Whole population of the UK, specific datasets can be broken down by age, gender, ethnicity
Where it covers:
Local authority
When updated:
Varies by local authority
How to use it:
The JSNA for your local area may be available as a published report / pdf, or as a website-based interactive document. It is likely to include specific sections on children and young people, including mental health.
What this is:
A regular survey exploring the experiences, wellbeing and mental health of Children and young people.
Who it includes:
Children and young people in England (age ranges are specified)
Where it covers:
The 2004 survey covered Great Britain, the 2017 survey and 2021 follow up covered England.
When updated:
The main survey was published in 2017, with a follow up in 2021. It is expected that more followups and surveys will be undertaken but no schedule is publicly available
How to use it:
Key findings and highlights are available as a report. Full data tables are also available to download; these are designed for non-technical audiences and are easy to navigate.
Findings can be broken down by ethnic group, by gender and age bands of 6 to 10 year olds and 11 to 16 year olds for all categories, and 17 to 22 years old. They can also be filtered by whether a child is unlikely to have a mental health disorder, possibly has a mental health disorder and probably has a mental health disorder.
Bear in mind:
The study is well-designed and intends to capture a reasonably accurate picture of your peoples' experience and the true prevalence of mental health issues in the population. It publishes detailed information on methodology and data quality which are worth exploring if using this data to guide decisions. It can be helpful to compare prevalence found here with information about service use in different areas.
What this is:
A dataset covering all the current domains and measures of national well-being for young people
The dataset contains young people’s rating of their life satisfaction, happiness, worthwhileness, and anxiety from high to low, financial issues, educational attainment, and access to natural environments.
As well as providing the latest data for each measure, where available a time series of data are also presented along with useful links to data sources and other websites which may be of interest
Who it includes:
Young People; most measures are for ages 16-24. Some relevant to educational attainment are ‘by age 19’
Where it covers:
UK Level
When updated:
Data is drawn from annual survey.
How to use it:
The data is available as a spreadsheet with each question separated and answers grouped for 16 to 19 year olds and for 20 to 24 year olds. The spreadsheet also highlights assessments of how measures have changed over time.
What this is:
A service provided by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPSYCH) offering an easy to use, comparable summary of indicators drawn mostly from the Mental health dataset.
Who it includes:
The whole population of England (age ranges vary according to indicator- some are specific to young people)
Where it covers:
Most data is available for England and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
When updated:
Most data is updated annually.
How to use it:
The tools available are extremely simple; simply select CCG view and then select your CCG. Most tools allow you to add multiple CCGs to the graph, allowing you to compare. You will be able to find indicators either by searching or following ‘related indicator’ recommendations.
Bear in mind:
Data is collected from multiple sources, and while it is updated regularly, may not be the very latest versions of the data.