Mental health data goes monthly

England’s biggest mental health dataset will be released monthly from this summer.

A new Health and Social Care Information Centre consultation report says data collection and releases from the Mental Health Minimum Dataset will be released monthly.

The information centre said the move would support effective commissioning, payment by results and bring further parity between timely mental health and acute care information.

April 2013 activity will be the first month collected for the new cycle and the first release is due in the summer.

MHMDS is England’s largest mental health dataset. It provides nationally consistent and comparable person-based information to a detailed local level about adult contacts with secondary mental health services.

The consultation report, released last week, summarised the views of more than 160 commissioners, organisations and interested parties on how MHMDS data could best be developed and presented to further support users.

Other information due to be released this spring as part of the annual Mental Health Bulletin includes; more analysis by provider type, such as by NHS and independent provider; data at Clinical Commissioning Group level in an underlying machine-readable data file; and more population-based analysis, using the latest census figures.

HSCIC chief executive Tim Straughan said consultations were vital to ensuring that any data collected by the centre was relevant, timely and met its full potential to benefit patient care.

“It is essential therefore that commissioners, along with other interested parties, have their say on what information can best support them in their role. The development of data should always endeavour to be based on a two-way conversation between those who produce information and those who need to use it.”