The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety today published statistics on activity within the Mental Health and Learning Disability programmes of care (POC) in Hospitals within Northern Ireland for the year ending 31 March 2013.
The statistical bulletin presents information on inpatient and day case activity, outpatient activity, and compulsory admissions under the Mental Health (NI) Order 1986.
KEY POINTS
The key findings presented in the statistics release are listed below.
MENTAL HEALTH
* Â Over the last five years, the total number of admissions to hospital under the mental health POC decreased by 0.7% (58), from 8,123 in 2008/09 to 8,065 in 2012/13 (Figure 1, Table 1.1).
* Â Since 2008/09, the total number of inpatient admissions under the mental health POC decreased by 28.5% (1,888), from 6,629 to 4,741 in 2012/13, whilst the number of admissions for day case treatment increased markedly from 1,494 in 2008/09 to 3,324 in 2012/13 (Figure 1, Table 1.1).
*  Across Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts, the highest average number of available beds within the mental health POC was reported in the Belfast HSC Trust (221.9, 31.9%) whilst the Southern HSC Trust reported the lowest (96.0, 13.8%) (Figure 10, Table 1.2 – 1.3).
* Â Between 2008/09 and 2012/13, the average length of stay within the mental health POC in hospitals decreased by 5.6 days, from 52.3 days to 46.7 days (Figure 13, Table 1.1).
* Â During 2012/13, there were 10,703 consultant-led outpatient attendances in the Belfast HSC Trust for the mental health specialties. Of these 732 (6.8%) were new attendances and 9,971 (93.2%) were review attendances (Table 1.4).
LEARNING DISABILITY
* Â The number of admissions to hospital under the learning disability POC decreased year on year from 1,886 in 2008/09 to 1,413 in 2012/13, a reduction of 25.1% (473) (Figure 18, Table 2.1).
*  All 1,413 admissions to hospital under the learning disability POC in 2012/13 were inpatient admissions (Figures 18 – 19, Table 2.1).
* Â Of the 315.8 average available beds within the learning disability POC in 2012/13, the majority 232.4 (73.6%) were available in the Belfast HSC Trust, 59.4 (18.8%) in the Southern HSC Trust and 24.0 (7.6%) in the Western HSC Trust (Table 2.2).
* Â Across hospitals, the highest average length of stay was in Muckamore Abbey (459.2 days), compared with an average of 115.0 days in Longstone Hospital, 52.0 days in Lakeview, and 2.2 days in Musgrave Park (Table 2.3).
* Â In 2012/13, there were 7,458 consultant-led outpatient attendances within the learning disability POC in Northern Ireland. Of these, 505 (6.8%) were new attendances and 6,953 (93.2%) were review attendances (Figure 23, Table 2.4).
The information release is published on the Departmental website at:Â
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