Mental health in Wales: what does the data tell us?
Published 01/09/2026
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Reading Timeminutes
Mental health is a major public health issue in Wales, affecting people of all ages and backgrounds. While anyone can experience poor mental health, evidence shows that some groups, including people experiencing poverty and other forms of disadvantage, are disproportionately affected. Concerns about increasing demand for services, long waiting times, workforce pressures, and inequalities in mental health outcomes have grown in recent years. At the same time, understanding the true scale of mental health need remains challenging.
Mental health data in Wales comes from a range ofle these provide important insights into mental health and wellbeing and service use, they do not provide a comprehensive picture of need, access to support, and outcomes
What do we know?
Around one in five adults experience a common mental health problem, such as anxiety or depression. Wales does not have a population survey equivalent to England’s Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS), which provides comprehensive estimates of the prevalence of mental health conditions. As a result, findings from the APMS are often used as an indicator of broader trends. The latest survey found that 20.2% of adults in England were living with a common mental health condition in 2023-24, and that prevalence has increased over time, particularly among younger people. This trend may partly reflect changes in awareness and reporting of mental health symptoms, as well as changes in population mental health.
Evidence consistently demonstrates a close relationship between mental health and wider social and economic inequalities. The Sixth Senedd’s Health and Social Care Committee found that factors such as poverty, housing insecurity, discrimination, and other forms of disadvantage can increase the risk of poor mental health and contribute to unequal outcomes
A range of data
- Around one quarter of people registered with a GP in Wales have a recorded mental health condition. However, this may underestimate the true level of need, as it does not include people who have not sought help or whose condition has not been recorded.
- Demand for services appears to have increased, with referrals to Local Primary Mental Health Support Services rising from around 6,000 per month in 2024 to over 7,500 per month in 2025 and 2026.
- Access to support remains a concern, particularly for people with more severe or complex mental health needs who require specialist services. Stakeholders have highlighted lengthy waits for treatment and difficulties accessing some specialist support, with some patients needing to travel outside Wales to receive treatment.
- Suicide rates in Wales have increased in recent years and remain higher than in England. Men account for around three-quarters of deaths, and rates are generally higher in more deprived communities.
- Antidepressant prescribing has risen sharply, with the number of antidepressant prescription items dispensed in Wales increasing from fewer than 2 million annually in the early 2000s to around 7 million in recent years. However, this data does not show how many individuals are taking antidepressants, nor whether the increase reflects greater need, changes in treatment practices, or longer-term use of medication.
What are the gaps in the data?
Despite the range of available statistics, important gaps remain
Mental health data is collected by different organisations for different purposes, meaning there is no single, joined-up picture of mental health in Wales. Information is often available for individual services rather than the whole system, making it difficult to understand how people move between services or whether they receive timely and effective care
There are also significant limitations in outcomes data. Many statistics focus on activity – such as referrals, appointments, or admissions – rather than whether services improve people’s mental health and wellbeing
Gaps also remain in our understanding of how mental health needs and experiences vary across different population groups. This can make it harder to identify inequalities, understand unmet need, and assess whether services are reaching those who may be most at risk of poor mental health, or whether efforts to reduce inequalities are having an impact
Improving the evidence base
In 2024, the previous Welsh Government published a mental health statistics dashboard bringing together data from a range ofation, and finance. While this has improved access to existing information, it does not resolve longstanding concerns about the quality, consistency, and completeness of the underlying data
The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has highlighted significant weaknesses in mental health data in Wales, including fragmented data collection and difficulties in building a comprehensive picture of need, service use, and outcomes. To address these issues, the previous Welsh Government committed to developing a national mental health core dataset as part of its Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy (April 2025). The dataset is intended to link information across services, enabling patient journeys to be tracked and providing a more complete picture of mental health needs and outcomes.
However, OSR noted that progress has been slow and that implementation continues to face challenges, including variation in local data systems, limited IT infrastructure, funding and workforce constraints, and the absence of a legal requirement for organisations to adopt the new dataset
The delivery plan accompanying the Mental Health Strategy includes a commitment to mandate a mental health core dataset for services within the first year of implementation. In its 2026 review, OSR concluded that mental health data in Wales are at a “crossroads”. While welcoming the proposed core dataset as essential to addressing longstanding evidence gaps and improving service planning, it stressed that successful implementation would require strong leadership, clear accountability, adequate resources, and standardised, mandatory data collection.
The Welsh Government has also committed to commission a comprehensive audit of health dataunderstanding of the wider health data landscape, it remains unclear how far it will address the specific challenges identified by OSR or how it will interact with the planned mental health core dataset and wider efforts to improve mental health evidence
Better mental health data is important, not only for understanding levels of need, but also for assessing whether services and interventions are improving outcomes. This is likely to become increasingly important as the Welsh Government seeks to reform mental health services, including through plans for open-access, same-day support and modernised community services. Without consistent information on patient journeys and outcomes, it will be difficult to assess whether these changes are improving access to support, reducing inequalities, and delivering better outcomes. Improving mental health data is therefore likely to remain an important issue for both Welsh Government accountability and Senedd scrutiny.
Article by Philippa Watkins, Senedd Research, Welsh Parliament
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Health and Care Services
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