Status

The Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) was introduced in April 2000 in response to the lack of national clinical data collection in the mental health arena. Since April 2003 it has been a mandatory requirement that all providers of specialist adult mental health services in a secondary care setting submit central MHMDS returns on a quarterly basis with an additional annual submission.

Changes outlined in MHMDS v4.0 to support the recommendations of the Mental Health Informatics Review are currently awaiting approval by the Information Standards Board (ISB).

The previous set of changes required to support Payment by Results (PbR) for mental health were approved in November 2010 (MHMDS v3.5). Information Standards Notice (ISN) 41/2010 outlines these changes and builds upon the previous Data Set Change Notice (DSCN) 06/2008 and 21/2008.

Background

The National Service Framework (NSF) for Mental Health was published in 1999 and outlined how mental health services were to be planned, delivered and monitored until 2009. This was followed by the NSF for Older People 2001 including Standard 7: Mental Health in Older People.

The Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) was developed to address the information requirements of the emerging NSF and is a nationally defined framework of data on adult mental health patients, including older people.

MHMDS facilitates the collection of person focused clinical data and the sharing of such data to underpin the delivery of mental health care. It is structured around the clinical process and includes an outcome assessment (HoNOS). It records the key role played by partner agencies, particularly social services.

The MHMDS describes Mental Health Care Spells. These comprise all interventions made for a patient by a specialist mental health care team from initial referral to final discharge. For some individuals the spell will comprise a short outpatient episode; for others it may extend over many years and include hospital, community, outpatient and day care episodes.

Information is collected relating to various stages in the patients journey including activity such as inpatients, outpatients, community care, and NHS day care episodes; mental health reviews and assessments including Care Programme Approach (CPA) and Health of Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS); contacts with mental health professionals such as care coordinator, psychiatric nurses and consultants and also any diagnosis and treatments.

The prime purpose of the dataset is to provide local clinicians and managers with better quality information for clinical audit, and service planning and management.

Central collection will provide improved national information, facilitating feedback to trusts and the setting of benchmarks. It will also allow the delivery of the NSF priorities to be monitored.

Project Documentation

If you have any comments or questions regarding the data set or require additional support, please do not hesitate to contact the NHS Information Centre through the Enquiries mailbox enquiries@ic.nhs.uk (please include ‘MHMDS' in your subject line).

For further information about MHMDS, including guidance for implementation, support arrangements and dataset specification, please visit the Mental Health Minimum Dataset (MHMDS) pages.