The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) brings together data and analysis on mental health and wellbeing from across the health and care system, and produces resources to help improve services and outcomes.

This guidance is for commissioners, public health professionals and others involved in the local planning and provision of services that support people with mental health conditions. It should support them to use these resources to make or influence decisions about local services.

Understanding mental health locally

OHID has created the mental health profile and guidance to help commissioners and other health professionals understand the mental health needs and services in their local area.

The tools bring together a wide range of publicly available data. The data is grouped by NHS geography or local authority. This means the tools can be used to benchmark one area against another. They can also be used to see trends and compare indicators.

OHID also analyses available mental health data and produces intelligence resources (detailed below) to support health professionals with using the data to make or influence decisions about local services.

Population mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing surveillance report presented close to real-time intelligence on the mental health and wellbeing of the population in England during the COVID-19 pandemic. The final version was published on 12 April 2022.

Severe mental illness

The severe mental illness profile shows the prevalence and risk factors of severe mental illness (SMI). It can also be used to find out more about early intervention, assessment, treatment and outcomes.

The psychosis data report explains the variation in numbers of people with psychosis and their access to care and support across England.

Physical health of people with a mental health problem

The Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Audit data and improvement tool provides data on key treatment indicators for improving the health of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). There are now 18 primary care CVD pathway metrics for patients with SMI  included, with accompanying data guidance.

The report on inequalities in cancer screening uptake examines differences in the uptake of bowel, breast and cervical screening by people with and without SMI. These are the 3 national cancer screening programmes in England. This report is based on an analysis of a sample of primary health care data.

The report on premature mortality during COVID-19 in adults with severe mental illness investigates premature mortality (deaths in those aged 18 to 74) during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020 to March 2021) in people with SMI.

It looks at premature mortality from all causes in people with SMI during the pandemic, how this differs across subgroups or regionally in England, and how this compares to premature mortality in people without SMI.

The report on premature mortality in adults with severe mental illness presents analysis of the geographical variation in the premature mortality and excess premature mortality for adults aged 18 to 74 years with SMI in England.

The report on severe mental illness and physical health inequalities uses a sample of primary care data to examine:

• the recorded prevalence of SMI by age, sex and deprivation in England

• the proportion of people with recorded SMI experiencing one or multiple physical health conditions in England

• inequalities in the co-morbidities and multi-morbidities between SMI and all patients by age, sex and deprivation in England

Mental health and wellbeing: JSNA toolkit

The mental health and wellbeing JSNA toolkit supports health and wellbeing boards and others interested in producing local mental health joint strategic needs assessments (JSNAs). It helps people to consider factors that affect mental health and wellbeing and to identify some of the key data, information and knowledge that local areas may use to build a picture of need.

The toolkit combines:

• the mental health and wellbeing (MHW) JSNA profile providing access to metrics on prevalence, risk and protective factors, and activity in and quality of support and care provision

• guidance with links to policy and evidence relating to understanding and meeting mental health need

Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing

The children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing profile can be used to understand the prevalence of children with, or vulnerable to, mental illness and what the risk factors are. It shows the range of health, social care and education services that support these children and information on the cost of these services.

Children living with parents in emotional distress provides data on the proportion of children living with at least one parent reporting symptoms of emotional distress, by family type and work status (updates are currently paused while the methodology is under review, with potential relaunch in 2025).

Guidance on how to use available information to assess and develop interventions which improve the mental wellbeing of children and young people is available in Measuring the mental wellbeing of children and young people.

Perinatal mental health

The The perinatal mental health profile shows shows data on mental health in pregnancy,pregnancy and the postnatal period and(2 babiesyears underafter onethe yearbirth old.event). It shows data on the demographics, risk and related factors, prevalence, and identificationaccess andto access,services. during the perinatal period. It includes metricsindicators at local authority and NHS geographies level. Perinatal mental health condition prevalence

The Perinatal mental health condition prevalence report explains the basis of the modelled prevalence estimates contained within the profile, presents the variation in prevalence across England and provides supporting information on how best to use the estimates.

Suicide prevention

The suicide prevention profile brings together a range of data on suicide to show how often it occurs, the risk factors, and what contact people with increased risk have with services.

The Suicide prevention profile updates page includes all updates. Some updates have an accompanying statistical commentary. The latest commentary introduces age and sex specific directly standardised suicide rates.

The near to real-time suspected suicide surveillance system for England is designed to act as an early warning system for changes in patterns of deaths by suicide to enable appropriate intervention. The reportreports shows show:

• statistics for the most recent 1525-month month period. It describes period
• monthly suspected suicide rates by age group and sex. The sex
• data ison aggregatedsuspected formethod 3of monthsuicide periodsfor tothe describemost suspectedrecent method of suicide.
  quarter

Common mental health disorders

The common mental disorders profile shows the prevalence of common mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety disorders, and what the risk factors for these disorders are. It can also be used to find out more about early intervention, assessment and treatment locally, as well as the outcomes and costs of these services.

There are metrics in the common mental disorders profile that are specific to older people.

The ‘Living well in older years’ chapter of the JSNA toolkit (see above) provides more information about common mental health disorders in older people, with a focus on depression.

Further information

OHID’s Nationalnational Mental Health Intelligence NetworkTeam produces these resources for commissioners and other health professionals to help them improve services and outcomes for patients.

For further guidance and information about the tools and analysisanalysis, please email mhin@dhsc.gov.ukmhit@dhsc.gov.uk.