Mental Health Services: Children

Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 16 December 2021.

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Photo of James Wild James Wild Conservative, North West Norfolk

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time from referral to discharge for child neurodevelopment services was in (a) Norfolk and (b) England in each of the last five years.

Photo of Gillian Keegan Gillian Keegan Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS Digital’s Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) provides data on the time between referrals and discharge for neurodevelopmental services and average waiting times for these services. However, due to data limitations this does not provide comprehensive information on average waiting times across all child neurodevelopmental services.

NHS Digital began collecting data for neurodevelopmental conditions in 2018. In addition, some referrals and activity of neurodevelopmental services for children fall out of scope of the MHSDS, as these often happen in community settings. The MHSDS relies on data submitted by providers of services for neurodevelopmental conditions, therefore a substantial number of neurodevelopmental cases may be omitted from current modelling.

The following table shows the average number of days between referral and discharge for neurodevelopmental conditions and autism in Norfolk and England in each year since 2018/19.

Norfolk

England

Financial year

Average number of days between referral and discharge

Average number of days between referral and discharge

2018/19

166

183

2019/20

254

246

2020/21

281

348

2021/22 (April to September)

289

331

Source: Mental Health Services Dataset, NHS Digital

Notes:

  1. Referrals with a null discharge date, null referral date, and a recorded discharge date which is prior to the referral date have been excluded from analysis.
  2. MHSDS referral codes 24 (neurodevelopmental conditions) and 25 (suspected autism) for people aged under 18 years old have been used to count referrals with a discharge between April 2018 and September 2021, as well as the average number of days between referral and discharge, grouped by financial year.
  3. It is not possible to provide data prior to 2018/19 as this was the first year that data for neurodevelopmental and autism conditions were recorded under their current codes in MHSDS.
  4. The scope of MHSDS includes all secondary mental health services for both adults and children and young people. A lot of referral and care activity for children and young people with neurodevelopmental conditions happens outside of these mental health services, often in community settings, and is therefore out of scope of MHSDS. At present, we are not able to give a good estimate of the volume of this community-based activity.

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