Publication, Part of Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures
Mental Health Act Statistics, Annual Figures, 2025-26
Official statistics, National statistics, Accredited official statistics
Summary
This publication contains the official statistics about uses of the Mental Health Act ('the Act') in England during 2025-26.
Under the Act, people with a mental disorder may be formally detained in hospital (or 'sectioned') in the interests of their own health or safety, or for the protection of other people. They can also be treated in the community but subject to recall to hospital for assessment and/or treatment under a Community Treatment Order (CTO).
Since 2016-17 these statistics are primarily produced from the Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS). People may be detained in secure psychiatric hospitals, other NHS Trusts or at Independent Service Providers (ISPs). All organisations that detain people under the Act must be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
In recent years, the number of detentions under the Act have been rising. An independent review examined how the Act is used and made recommendations for improving the Mental Health Act legislation.
In response to the review, the government introduced a new Mental Health Bill to reform practice which received Royal Assent in December 2025.
This publication does not cover:
1. People in hospital voluntarily for mental health treatment, as they have not been detained under the Act (see the Mental Health Bulletin).
2. Uses of section 136 where the place of safety was a police station; these are published by the Home Office.
Highlights
Access the code used to create this report
The code used to create the outputs for this report is available on our NHS Digital GitHub webpage.
Key Facts
In 2025-26:
- 56,461 new detentions under the Mental Health Act were recorded which is an increase of 7.1% compared to last year, but the overall national totals will likely be higher. Not all providers submitted data, and some submitted incomplete data. Trend comparisons are also affected by changes in data quality.
- Comparisons can still be made between groups of people using population-based rates, even though the rates shown may be based on incomplete data. Known detention rates were higher for males (95.0 per 100,000 population) than females (84.4 per 100,000 population).
- Amongst adults, detention rates tend to decline with age. Known detention rates for the 18 to 34 age group (139.1 detentions per 100,000 population) were around 71% higher than for those aged 65+ (81.3 per 100,000 population).
Resources
Last edited: 15 October 2026 4:56 pm