About the dataset
Now in its 15th year, the NHS Benchmarking Network's Children and Young People's Mental Health benchmarking dataset provides a comprehensive, UK-wide picture of specialist mental health service provision.
The dataset brings together key performance, activity, workforce and financial metrics, offering valuable insights into service delivery, variation and best practice. The findings support service improvement, strategic planning and informed decision-making at local, regional and national levels.
All data and reporting are aligned with current national (individual UK nations) and UK-wide service, policy and practice priorities (outlined below). While health policy and service models vary across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there is strong alignment around shared priorities for delivering safe, effective, high-quality mental health care for children and young people.
Making the case
Evidence demand over time
With more than a decade of data, long-standing members can show how demand has increased and how their workforce has changed. Newer members can still see the national historical trend and compare demand in their locality with variation across the country.
What it covers?
Service model, access, activity, workforce and finance, giving members a full view of their service alongside organisations across the country.
Meet the team
Alison Worden
Delivery Manager, Children & Young People's Mental Health Dataset
Key themes
Community mental health services
Access
Waiting times
Caseload
Contacts
Productivity
Workforce
Finance
Patient profiles
Clinical characteristics
Demographic characteristics
Inpatient mental health services
Bed occupancy
Patient safety
Lengths of stay
Detentions under the Mental Health Act
Workforce
Finance
Outcomes
Patient-reported outcomes
Clinician-reported outcomes
Health inequalities
Racial inequality
Workforce
Workforce per population
Workforce per 10 beds
The dataset in numbers
3.5 million+
contacts delivered, represented in the data from the 2024 project
15th year
of the Children and Young People's Mental Health benchmarking dataset
UK-wide
Covering services in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland