About this report

This is the initial monitoring report for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. It provides an update on progress towards the Strategy’s short-term outcomes (1–3 years) and summary outcomes.

The report is organised as follows:

• Methodology – explains how the Strategy’s outcomes were mapped to data sources, including details on the outcomes that are included for monitoring.

• Data Gaps – sets out the main cross-cutting data gaps that affect monitoring across multiple outcomes

• Outcomes - outlines the progress made so far towards the Strategy’s summary and short-term outcomes.

Each outcome chapter of this report presents one of the summary or short-term outcomes. Chapters include:

• Background information on the outcome

• The metrics used to track change

• Description of the data

• A short reflection on the outcome

• Data gaps that limit tracking the outcome

How to interpret the data

• Baseline data: Baseline data provides a reference point for understanding the context of each outcome before, or near, the launch of the Strategy in June 2023. It helps to identify where things stood before new actions were taken and establishes a starting point against which future changes can be monitored. Where data prior to the launch of the Strategy are unavailable, the most recent published data have been used instead.

• Updates: More recent data, available from after the Strategy was published, provide early indications of change and help show how metrics have changed over time since the Strategy was launched.