Mental Health Inpatient Census 2025 - Parts 1 and 2
Annual publication of data collected in the Inpatient Census covering patients in mental health, addiction and learning disability beds who are funded by NHS Scotland at a point in time.
3. All patients treated in NHS Scotland facilities (summary)
This section provides an overview of the demographic data for all patients occupying mental health, addiction, and learning disability beds, in NHS Scotland during the 2025 census. More detailed information on specific groups, including adults (18+), children and young people (<18), and forensic patients, will be presented in later sections.
- 61% of patients in the 2025 census were male.
- The majority of patients (71%) identify as White Scottish.
- Most patients (80%) in the 2025 census had no dependents.
The age distribution of patients shows patients are most likely to be aged between 40 and 64 years or over (38%) or 65 years and over years (34%). The average (mean) age of patients in the 2025 census was 54 years.
Figure 4: Inpatients by age and sex.
Psychiatric, addiction or learning disability inpatients, NHS Scotland, March/April census, 2025
The most common reason for admission was “Mental Health Admission (no additional detail added)” (39% of patients), followed by “Mental Health Admission for Therapeutic/Clinical crisis” (37% of patients), and “Mental Health Admission for Rehabilitation” (7% of patients).
The majority of patients (71%) identified as “White Scottish”, with 8% identifying as “White”. “White Other British” patients made up 8% of the census, “Asian, Asian Scottish or Asian British” patients accounted for 2%, and “Other/multiple ethnic groups” patients accounted for 2%.
55% of patients had never been married or registered in a civil partnership. Most patients (80%) had no dependents, 8% had a working age adult dependent, and 3% had at least one child between 5 and 15 years old.
In the 2025 census, 32% of patients were retired. The proportion of unemployed patients was 51%. Additionally, 4% of patients were not allowed to work, and 2% were students.
986 patients answered that they had no religion, 377 Church of Scotland, 228 Roman Catholic, 66 Other Christian and 33 Muslim. Around just over one third of patients were “not known” or did not want to provide this information,
2255 patients answered that they were heterosexual, 23 gay or lesbian, 11 bisexual and 9 another sexuality. Around one fifth of patients’ sexuality was not known as it was either not recorded or patients did not want to provide this information.
Adult inpatients were asked if they considered themselves trans. 9 answered yes (<1%), 14 that they prefer not to say (<1%), and 200 were unknown.
2251 patients (82%) had a long-term health condition expected to last 12 months or more. Of these, 1392 (64%) said that it reduced their ability to carry out day to day activities a lot.
Of the 2363 patients who had a valid residential postcode, 781 (33%) came from the most deprived 20% of areas and 307 (13%) from the least deprived. 1037 (44%) were from large urban areas, 840 other urban (36%), 183 accessible rural areas (8%), 165 accessible small towns (7%), 83 remote rural (4%) and 55 from remote small towns (2%).