Why has there been an increase in admissions for mental health diagnosis in the last year?

Demand for mental health services has been rising year on year. 2023 was a record-breaking year for admissions, with NHS Benchmarking Data showing a rise in both referrals and hospital admissions for inpatient treatment.

There was an 11% rise in adult community mental health service referrals and 213,000 children on waiting lists. 27% of these children waited for more than 18 weeks to receive treatment.

Pressure on mental health services is intense. Capacity has modestly increased from 2019 to 2024, and the NHS’s mental healthcare workforce has been expanded, particularly in children’s services, which went from 88 staff members to 100,000 members of the population to 121. Despite this increase, waiting lists continue to be long, and many people need more care.

Inpatient services remain under significant pressure, and bed occupancy remains high, at 94%. This well exceeds the NHS’s ‘safe’ bed occupancy rate of 85%. Part of this is due to the length of stays, which has increased to an average of 39 days.

What’s driving the increase?

Record numbers of people are looking for mental health support. Mental health services were strained before 2019, and the extra staff hired since then cannot keep up with the increase in referrals, which have increased by 11% for adults and 7% for children. School Mental Health Support Teams have been installed in many areas, which has resulted in a 6% rise in referrals, which is expected to increase.

Mental health in the UK is in crisis and has been for a long time, with rates of mental illness steadily rising in the population. The rate of mental health problems in children has risen by 50% in 3 years. In 2017, just 13% of people recorded living with high levels of positive mental health. Over a quarter of people reported experiencing panic attacks.

Many of these conditions are being driven by external factors, and the UK has had a particularly tumultuous 15 years.

COVID-19

COVID-19 is still cited as the source of many ongoing societal problems. Lockdowns may be long over, but the impact of the pandemic is still being felt.

Mental illness had been steadily rising before COVID-19, but the pandemic accelerated it massively – and it has had long-lasting effects on mental health. About a third of adults and young people claim their mental health became worse as a result of the pandemic. These mental health problems are still with us.

As well as the longer-lasting impacts on mental health, the way hospitals treated mental health changed during the pandemic – and the effects of this may still be playing out today. Surging demand and social distancing meant that hospitals had to rely on outpatient care, and there was a trend towards shorter inpatient stays and higher turnover of beds. This meant that people who needed acute care during the pandemic may have yet to receive the level of treatment they needed, leading to a backlog of cases, more severe outcomes and higher readmission rates.

This is seriously risky for all mental health conditions, but for conditions that hugely benefit from early detection and treatment, such as bipolar or schizophrenia, this is acutely dangerous.

Grief and loss, prolonged isolation and health complications from COVID-19 infection have driven rises in anxiety, stress, PTSD, social anxiety and depression. We’re a long way from addressing any of these ailments at the population level, and other factors are putting even more pressure on people’s already stretched coping mechanisms.

Poverty and cost of living

Data show that people from the most deprived areas of the UK are twice as likely to be in contact with mental health services as people from the least deprived areas. The link between poverty and poor mental health is well known – and the UK is much poorer now than it was 15 years ago.

Research by the Centre for Cities shows that every area of the UK has been levelled down since 2010, leaving the average Briton a staggering £10,200 worse off than they would have been if the economy had kept growing at pre-2010 levels. Productivity has slumped, housing costs have skyrocketed, and child poverty has risen in almost every single UK city.

This long-term trend became dramatically worse during the cost of living crisis, where inflation hit a 41-year high. This left an already worse-off population facing soaring food, housing and fuel costs.

The anxiety, insecurity and despair from this collective downgrading of people’s financial outcomes are visible in the increased demand for mental health services. However, as well as people being poorer, public services have also lost big chunks of their funding. Despite modest rises in staffing since 2019, mental health services saw massive cuts between 2010-2015 of 8% – 15% in some areas. This means small staffing increases in recent years have not been able to plug the gap adequately – demand has risen sharply, while capacity has decreased overall.

Male mental health crisis

In the years 1999-2017, mental health admissions amongst females remained relatively steady – there was a 0.3% rise. However, among males, there was an increase of 8.1%. It’s unclear why there has been a disproportionate rise in male admissions, but this echoes larger trends.

There have been concerted efforts to destigmatise reaching out for mental health support in the last 25 years – and this could mean men are more likely to seek help than before when previously they would have suffered in silence. However, data shows that it’s not just destigmatisation: men’s mental health really is worse in recent years. Compared to 2009, men are three times more likely to see a therapist, and suicidal thoughts among men have doubled.

Worsening financial outcomes and employment worries have been reported as major drivers. It has also become clear that social media is starting to impact men’s self-esteem in the same way that it impacts women’s – the percentage of men who are worried about their appearance has risen from 18-23% since 2009, and 37% now report that social media hurts how they feel.

Supply and demand

2023 brought multiple crises to a head in mental health provision. Services have been drastically cut, and more than recent hiring is needed. Meanwhile, demand for these services has been rising for years. The pandemic and cost of living crises made a bad situation worse, spiking demand to unsustainable levels.

Services for people experiencing severe mental health issues must be expanded – but the underlying causes of deteriorating mental health in the UK must be properly acknowledged and addressed.

If you or a loved one is suffering from a mental health issue and feel you would benefit from speaking to an expert, call our team today, and we can supply the help you need.