29.06.12
Mental health patients’ mortality rate three times as high
The mortality rate in sufferers of serious mental illness is three times as high as in the general population, new data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) shows.
For people aged 18-74 with a serious mental health problem, around 13 in every 1,000 people died in 2009/10 compared to around four in every 1,000 of the general population.
The new measure has been published as part of the NHS Outcomes Framework and defines someone as having a serious mental illness if they have been in contact with specialist or secondary mental health services at any time over the last three years.
It is the first time mortality data has been linked to the Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS).
HSCIC chief executive Tim Straughan said: “The mental health indicator breaks new ground by linking data from the Mental Health Minimum Data set with deaths data from the Office of National Statistics to reveal the extent to which people with a serious mental health condition are more likely to die than those in the general population.
“The HSCIC is increasingly exploiting the benefits of linking data from disparate sources in order to provide valuable insights into health issues which can be explored further and inform decision-making at local and national level.”
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