NHS mental health dashboard

The NHS mental health dashboard brings together key data from across mental health services to measure the performance of the NHS in delivering our ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

The dashboard provides transparency in assessing how NHS mental health services are performing, alongside technical details explaining how mental health services are funded and delivered.

The most recent version of the dashboard includes the latest data available up to and including quarter 2 of the 2024/25 financial year.

Mental health services funding and investment ambitions

Evaluating progress on mental health funding and investment

  • Since 2015/16, the NHS in England nationally has met its commitment to achieve the Mental Health Investment Standard (MHIS).
  • 2024/25 total planned spend on mental health MHIS is £11.79 billion. In 2023/24 actual spend on mental health MHIS was £11.31 billion.
  • In 2024/25 total planned spend on learning disability, autism and dementia was £3.95 billion, compared to £3.83 billion in 2023/24.
  • 2024/25 planned spend shows the proportion of spend at integrated care board (ICB) level on mental health (including learning disability, autism and dementia) against base allocation of 14.5%, which is comparable to 14.5% in 2023/24 and an increase from 13.8% in 2021/22 (financial year from which allocations are on the same basis).
  • Spending across mental health services (specialised commissioning and ICB combined, including learning disability, autism and dementia) is planned to increase to £18.22 billion in 2024/25 compared to £17.64 billion in 2023/24. This continues the annual increase in spend achieved each year from £12.51 billion in 2018/19.

Mental health service ambitions

The investment and ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan were intended to expand access and deliver timely, high quality mental health support. Further detail on the full set of ambitions is set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

Evaluating progress on mental health service ambitions

The NHS mental health dashboard presents activity and implementation data for a range of NHS Long Term Plan ambitions, with a summary of progress against the key ambitions set out in the table below.

Ambition Progress in quarter 2 (July 2024 to September 2024)
At least an additional 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 accessing support via NHS funded mental health services and school or college-based mental health support teams. The number of under 18s receiving at least 1 contact with NHS funded mental health services in 2023/24 (12 month rolling metric) was 798,479 which is an additional 284,515 contacts since the start of the NHS Long Term Plan (against a baseline of 513,964). This is a decrease on the previous quarter (802,230).
Children and young people eating disorder waiting times – achieve and maintain standard of 95% 75.7% of children and young people with an eating disorder started urgent treatment within 1 week, an increase on previous quarter (67.1%).

For non-urgent cases 76.0% started treatment within 4 weeks, an increase on the previous quarter (70.0%).
Specialist perinatal mental health service access to reach 66,000 In 2014, fewer than 15% of localities provided specialist perinatal mental health services for women with complex or severe conditions at the full level recommended in National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance, and more than 40% provided no service at all. Since April 2019, there has been a specialist community perinatal mental health service in every integrated care system area of England.

In quarter 2 of 2024/25, access to specialist perinatal mental health services, including maternal mental health services, increased to 60,637 women compared to 59,470 women in quarter 1 of 2024/25.
176,000 people to receive a course of treatment in NHS talking therapies in quarter 2, 2024/25 (75% of patients to be seen within 6  weeks) The number of patients finishing courses of treatment was 173,064 in quarter 2 of 2024/25 (an increase from 169,239 in quarter 1 of 2024/25).

Of those that finished a course of treatment in quarter 2 of 2024/25 91.8% started treatment within 6 weeks. This is a slight decrease from 92.5% in quarter 1 2024/25.
Access to community mental health services for adults and older adults with severe mental illness

1.    Increase overall access year on year

2.    400,000 people with severe mental illness to access new and integrated models of primary and community mental health care in 2024/25.

 Overall access to all community mental health services for adults and older adults was 629,567 in quarter 2 of 2024/25. This is an increase of 3% from quarter 1 of 2024/25 (613,945).

Access to new and integrated models of primary and community mental health care was 569,254 in quarter 2 of 2024/25. This is an increase of 9.9% from 517,749 in quarter 1 of 2024/25 and exceeds the target for 2024/25.

 
Reduce inequalities by working towards 75% of people with severe mental illness receiving a full annual physical health check, with at least 60% receiving one by March 2025. In quarter 2 of 2024/25, 57% of people with severe mental illness received an annual physical health check, compared to 59% in quarter 1 of 2024/25.
Every area in England will offer access to comprehensive all age crisis care services via NHS 111 ‘select mental health’ option’ by 2023/24 The NHS has achieved all its crisis care commitments, providing individuals with access to 24/7 age-appropriate crisis care via NHS 111 #MH option, comprehensive crisis resolution home treatment services for adults, continuous provision for children and young people and a range of alternative crisis services.

NHS mental health dashboard