Mental health quality indicator profile

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS), presents the latest available information on mental health quality indicators in support of the Mental health and wellbeing strategy 2023 and Core Mental Health Standards. It is the second update of the new dashboard format and provides updated data for seven indicators.

• At sub-national level, there is one annual update for the indicator "Delayed Discharges: Number of days people spend in hospital when they are clinically ready to be discharged (per 1,000 population)".
• Also at sub-national level are quarterly updates for three indicators: "% of all discharged psychiatric inpatients followed up by community mental health services within 7 calendar days"; "Incidents of physical violence per 1,000 occupied psychiatric bed days"; and "% of 'did not attend appointments' for community-based services of people with mental health problems".
• At national level, there are three indicators with annual updates: "Rate of emergency bed days for adults"; "% of mental health emergency readmissions to hospital within 28 days of discharge"; and "% of under 18 year old psychiatric admissions admitted out with NHS specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) wards".

Plans for development can be found on the front page of the main dashboard for the publication.

Main points

In the year ending 31 March 2025:

• the rate of emergency bed days for adults in psychiatric hospital beds following emergency admission in Scotland was 17,905 per 100,000 population, compared to 17,002 per 100,000 population for the year ending 31 March 2024.
• the percentage of mental health emergency readmissions within 28 days in Scotland was 6.8%. This compares with 7.3% for the year ending 31 March 2024 and 7.6% for the year ending 31 March 2023.
• the percentage of psychiatric admissions for patients under 18 years old that were admitted outwith NHS specialist CAMH wards was 31.4%. This compares with 27.5% during the year ending 31 March 2024 and 30.0% during the year ending 31 March 2023.

Background

Please note the dashboard has been developed to provide enhanced visualisation, sub-national data analysis (where available), and improved interaction for users. The Mental Health Quality Indicators (MHQI) publication was created to provide an overview of Mental Health Services across Scotland, by combining previously published and new information into a single profile, supporting Action 38 of the Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027. Previous versions of the publication are available on our website The dashboard will be regularly updated when data is available, further indicators have been developed, and when new indicators are identified which fall under its remit.

Further information

The next release of this publication will 29 October 2025.