The data on average number of available beds in secure units in England are for beds in national health service units only and do not include beds provided by the independent sector.
Data on the average daily number of mental health secure unit beds, and learning disability secure unit beds in national health service units in England over the last five years are set out in the following table.
Average daily number of mental health and learning disability secure unit beds in NHS units2002-032003-042004-052005-062006-07Available mental illness2,0642,5692,6962,8072,993Occupancy mental illness1,8672,3782,4722,5452,722Available learning disability508514503526516Occupancy learning disability482470484502489 Note: The definitions of mental health and learning disability secure unit beds, for the purposes of the KH03 annual beds collection, are: Mental illness—Other ages, secure unit an Age Group Intended of National Code 8 “Any age”, a Broad Patient Group Code of National Code 5 “Patients with mental illness” and a Clinical Care Intensity of National Code 51 “for intensive care: specially designated ward for patients needing containment and more intensive management. This is not to be confused with intensive nursing where a patient may require one to one nursing while on a standard ward”. Learning disabilities—Other ages, secure unit an Age Group Intended of National Code 8 “Any age”, a Broad Patient Group Code of National Code 6 “Patients with learning difficulties” and a Clinical Care Intensity of National Code 61 “designated or interim secure unit”. Source: Department of Health Dataset KH03(1).
These figures do not represent the full level of secure services available to the NHS. Some low secure mental health services are not consistently defined and may well fall outside the definitions used for this data collection. These figures also show only NHS beds in NHS units and not those commissioned by the NHS and provided by independent sector providers.
This information is not collected centrally. Information is collected by the Department on average daily bed numbers within individual national health service trusts, but not on average bed occupancy levels within trusts.