Publication - Statistics

Mental Health Inpatient Census 2025 - Parts 1 and 2

Published: 24 February 2026
Directorate: Population Health Directorate, +1 more … Mental Health Directorate

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.

Part of

Supporting documents

6. Patients receiving Forensic Services (additional detail)

Forensic Services Patients:

438 patients (15%) in the census were receiving Forensic Services.
Patients receiving Forensic Services are mostly males of working age.
87% of forensic patients were either overweight or obese.

Forensic mental health services specialise in the assessment, treatment and risk management of people with a mental disorder who are currently undergoing, or have previously undergone, legal or court proceedings. Some other people are managed by forensic mental health services because they are deemed to be at a high risk of harming others or, rarely, themselves under civil legislation.

In this section’s analysis, forensic patients were identified based on the answer to the following census question: “Is the patient being primarily managed by forensic services?”.

Health Boards returned data for every forensics ward in all censuses from 2014 onwards.

There were 438 patients (15%) primarily managed by Forensic Services in the 2025 census.

Forensic Regional Units in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, NHS Lothian, and NHS Tayside, serve patients from other NHS Boards. NHS Fife also provides a low security Learning Disability (Forensic) Regional Unit for patients from other NHS boards. The State Hospital (a Special NHS Board) provides a National Service, including for Northern Ireland.

Table 17: Number of forensic patients by NHS Board.

Forensics inpatients, NHS Scotland, March/April census, 2014 - 2025

NHS Board	2014	2016	2017	2018	2019	2022	2023	2024	2025
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	0	0	16	18	19	18	19	20	18
NHS Borders	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0	0	0	0	0	0	c	c	7
NHS Fife	31	34	39	35	39	27	25	23	21
NHS Forth Valley	20	0	0	0	0	12	15	14	13
NHS Grampian	42	42	40	41	37	44	42	49	50
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	128	122	119	123	119	117	111	112	113
NHS Highland	0	0	0	0	0	6	8	c	c
NHS Lanarkshire	19	15	20	25	28	25	30	31	21
NHS Lothian	65	47	56	51	72	41	36	34	32
NHS Tayside	65	55	64	62	49	47	50	58	56
NHS Western Isles	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
State Hospital	121	117	111	108	109	113	109	99	103
Scotland	507	458	484	475	488	450	447	447	438

c - Suppressed due to small numbers. Secondary suppression also applied.

Age and sex

Working age males aged 18-64 make up the majority of patients receiving forensic services in the 2025 census (91%). Patients aged 65 and over represent only 5% of forensic patients.

Figure 10: Forensic inpatients age.

Forensic Inpatients, NHS Scotland, 2025 census.

Figure 10: Graph showing the age and sex distribution of patients in NHS Scotland Mental Health, addictions and learning disabilities wards. The vast majority (91%) are working-age males.

Ward Type

304 patients (69%) were treated in a Forensic (non-LD) ward, 59 patients (13%) were in a Rehabilitation (non addiction) ward, 40 patients (9%) were in a Forensic (LD) ward and 16 patients (4%) were in an IPCU.

Ward Security Level

Forensic Services Patients in different security wards:

Low Security Ward: 128 patients (29%)
Medium Security Ward: 123 patients (28%)
High Security Ward: 103 patients (24%)
General Psychiatric Ward: 24 patients (5%)

Speciality of consultant

A total of 390 patients (89%) were being seen by a forensic psychiatrist.

Length of stay in hospital

Patients receiving forensic services tend to have longer average (median) lengths of stay.

Table 18: Average (median) length of stay for forensic and non-forensic patients.

Forensic Inpatients, NHS Scotland, 2025 census.

Forensic Patient	Average (Median) Days since MH Admission	Median Stay (in Months)
Non-forensic Services Patients	86	3
Forensic Services Patients	876	29
All	119	4

308 patients had been in hospital for over a year (70%). Only 11 patients (3%) had been in hospital for less than two weeks.

Table 19: Banded length of stay for forensic patients.

Forensic Inpatients, NHS Scotland, 2017 – 2025 census.

Days since admission	2017	2018	2019	2022	2023	2024	2025
Less than 2 weeks	13	13	17	11	6	6	11
Less than 1 month	15	0	10	6	9	6	14
Less than 3 months	36	0	21	34	21	36	28
Less than 6 months	34	43	33	23	37	32	29
Less than 1 year	58	43	37	36	53	45	48
Less than 5 years	203	226	234	195	169	158	184
Over 5 years	125	114	136	145	152	107	124
All	484	475	488	450	447	390	438

Health and wellbeing

Mental Health morbidities

NHS Boards provided diagnosis codes (ICD-10) for patients. 190 patients (45%) receiving forensic services had 2 or more mental health conditions. Schizophrenia was the most common condition (61% of patients).

Figure 11: Psychiatric Comorbidities.

Forensic Inpatients, NHS Scotland, 2025 census.

All mental health diagnoses are based on ICD-10 codes. Primary and secondary diagnoses included. ** Personality disorders and autistic spectrum disorder counts also rely on respective questions on these disorders.
Patients may have more than one diagnosis.

Physical health co-morbidities in patients receiving Forensic Services

At the 2025 census, 212 patients (48%) receiving forensic services had at least one physical health co-morbidity based on the Yes/No physical health questions (as described in Chapter 4 – Adult patients). This percentage is lower compared to all adult patients who had a long-term physical health condition (58%).

Among patients receiving forensic services with a physical health co-morbidity, the majority of those with a long term physical health condition had only 1 condition (25%) while 4% had 3 or more. The most common physical condition among these patients was Diabetes, affecting 16% of all forensics patients, followed by Hypertension at 13%, and Dyslipidaemia at 10%.

Figure 12: Forensic inpatients, Number of physical health comorbidities.

Forensic Inpatients, NHS Scotland, 2025 census.

Figure 12: Graph showing the percentage of patients managed by Forensic services with physical health comorbidities in NHS Scotland Mental Health, addictions and learning disabilities wards. Around 25% have one physical health condition, while around 4% have 4 or more.

Physical health check

Of the patients receiving forensic services and admitted within the last year, 84% received a general physical examination. For those admitted over one year ago, 87% had also received an annual physical health check.

In the 2025 census, a total of 353 (87%) forensic patients with available information received some form of physical health check.

Lifestyle factors

BMI (Body Mass Index)

BMI (Body Mass Index) was calculated for patients whose height and weight information was provided. No data was provided for 14 forensics patients.

Of the patients receiving forensic services, 230 (54%) were classified as obese, while 138 (33%) were classified as overweight. Overall, 87% of forensic patients were overweight or obese, compared to 63% for all adult patients (excluding those in eating disorder wards).

Smoking, alcohol and other substance use

This section analyses patients with alcohol dependence and/or substance misuse based on a combination of questions. Please note that a minor methodological change was made in 2017 (see Methodology for further detail).

Out of all forensic patients, 128 (29%) reported smoking tobacco in the 12 weeks before the census.

In the 2025 census, 24 forensic patients (5%) had a dependence on or harmful use of alcohol in the weeks prior to admission.

A total of 71 forensic patients (16%) had abused substances excluding alcohol.

Self-harm

Information on self-harm was available for 438 forensic patients (100%). Among them, 22 (6%) had self-harmed in the week prior to admission. Among those 438 patients, 15 had self-harmed by non-accidental injury.

It is important to note that patients can self-harm in more than one way.

Suicidal ideation

Information on suicidal ideation was available for 381 forensic patients (87%). Among them, 29 (8%) had expressed suicidal ideation on admission to the hospital.

SIMD and Urban / Rural

Of the 286 forensics patients who had a valid postcode, 124 (43%) came from the most deprived 20% of areas and 22 (8%) from the least deprived. 148 (52%) were from Large Urban Areas, 91 were from Other Urban Areas (32%), and 19 (7%) from Accessible Rural.

Thanks for your feedback