Apps

New data tool to support access to mental health statistics

National mental health statistics that shed new light on care and treatment for patients are now available at the click of a mouse thanks to the latest interactive data hub created by NHS Digital.

The online hub, which was launched last week enables healthcare workers, patients, carers, charities and researchers to find the information most relevant to them at their fingertips.

The Mental Health Data Hub includes published official figures for England from NHS Digital’s datasets. This includes information on the number of people in contact with mental health services, the proportion of mental health, learning disability and autism service users admitted as an inpatient and estimates for the number of staff in the mental health and learning disability workforce. Users can view the data in visualisations including charts and graphs and select providers or geographical areas of interest.

Ramesh Notra, Principal Information Analyst in Community and Mental Health at NHS Digital, said: “The Mental Health Data Hub is a key tool to enable people to access our mental health statistics more easily and in an interactive way. The dashboards have been designed to guide users to the key information and allow them to investigate further using the interactive features provided.”

“The data hub also provides links to sources of mental health data produced by other organisations. As well as improving access, we hope the hub will assist in our efforts to improve data quality by enabling organisations to see how they compare in terms of data submissions. We hope mental health professionals, patients, carers and researchers find the hub useful and we would urge them to let us know what they think via the link on the homepage.”

The Mental Health Data Hub can be found here