Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people in England with severe mental illness are registered with a GP; and how many such people had an annual physical health check in each year since 2010.

Alistair Burt

This information is not available in the format requested.

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) is published annually, and includes mental health indicators, which capture information on patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses and other patients on lithium therapy. The information captured does not relate specifically to whether patients have received an ‘annual physical health check’, but does include counts of those patients who have a record of blood pressure, alcohol consumption, or body mass index (BMI).

The relevant indicators are available from the year 2011/12. The data in the table below are snapshots as at 31 March of the reporting year.

Number of patients included in the QOF mental health register with records of blood pressure, BMI and alcohol consumption – England 2011/12 – 2014/15

Notes:

1. For the years 2013/14 and 2014/15, ‘register’ includes all patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses and other patients on lithium therapy. For the years 2011/12 and 2012/13, ‘register’ includes all patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses.

2. Blood pressure record, alcohol consumption record and BMI record include all those patients with schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder and other psychoses who have a record of blood pressure, alcohol consumption and BMI respectively in the preceding 12 months for the years 2013/14 and 2014/15, and in the preceding 15 months for the years 2011/12 and 2012/13.

Due to the changes in the definitions of the register and indicators, the data from 2013/14 onwards are not comparable with data prior to this time.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre do not recommend using the figures provided to calculate percentages, for the following reasons:

― The register for 2013/14 to 2014/15 includes ‘other patients on lithium therapy’, while the blood pressure, alcohol consumption and BMI records do not consider these patients.

― The indicators are published as achievement scores in QOF; the calculation of these proportions includes consideration of exclusions and exceptions as defined in the framework, which are not reflected in the numbers presented here.