Mortality rate for mental illness is three times the average

People who suffer with a serious mental illness have a mortality rate three times as high as those in the general population, according to new research.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre has linked mortality data to its own mental health minimum dataset which contains patient specific data for over one million people with mental health problems.

This is the first time mental health data has been linked to deaths data.

The figures show around 13 in every 1,000 people aged between 18 and 74 with a serious mental health condition died in the financial year 2009-10, compared to about four in 1,000 of the general population between these ages.

The mental health minimum dataset will be the key measure used to support the launch of the new payment by results system for mental health services.

The findings form a new measure published for the very first time today as part of the NHS Outcomes Framework.

Under the measure, people with a serious mental illness are defined as those who have been in contact with specialist secondary mental health services at any time over the previous three years – including outpatients, people in contact with community services and inpatients.

The mental health measure is one of two new measures published as part of the framework, which sets out the national outcomes the government has said it will use to monitor the progress of the NHS Commissioning Board. The second new measure looks at emergency readmission rates.

Information centre chief executive Tim Straughan said: “The mental health indicator breaks new ground by linking data from the mental health minimum data set with deaths data from the Office of National Statistics to reveal the extent to which people with a serious mental health condition are more likely to die than those in the general population.

“The HSCIC is increasingly exploiting the benefits of linking data from disparate sources in order to provide valuable insights into health issues which can be explored further and inform decision making at local and national level.”