Mental health statistics include children for first time

A breakdown of statistics on young people who have been referred for treatment or assessment with mental health services in England has been published by NHS Digital.

This is summarised in counts of people who had an open referral at some point in 2016/17 regardless of whether they assessed services in the period.

According to figures in the Mental Health Bulletin 2016-17, 16-17-year-old females were most likely to have had an open referral with mental health and learning disabilities services out of all young people.

11 per cent of 16-17-year-old females in England are known to have had an open referral with NHS-funded secondary mental health, learning disabilities or autism services during 2016/17. Two per cent of this group were admitted to hospital as part of their referral.

During the same period, eight per cent of 16-17-year-old males in England are known to have had an open referral with these services.

In total, more than 2.6 million people are known to have had an open referral with mental health services at some point during the year. 560,000 of these were under 18 years of age.

This means that five per cent of people in England are known to have had an open referral with secondary mental health, learning disabilities and autism services during 2016/17.

Females aged 90 or over were most likely to have had an open referral with these services as a proportion of their overall population (around one in five of their population). This includes people referred to these services because of mental health disorders such as dementia.