Growing numbers of mental health referrals can be linked to an expansion in services offered, a Berkshire health trust has said.

Figures obtained by a Freedom of Information request to the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust found an increase in its mental health referrals over the past five years – having grown from 42,222 in 2018 to 58,253 in 2023.

The trust operates health services in several key sites across the county, including at Slough’s Upton and Wexham Park hospitals.

A trust spokesperson said: “The increase in referrals is partly due to the expanded range of mental health services we now offer, such as the Mental Health Integrated Community Services (MHICS), and for children and young people there are now Mental Health in School Teams (MHIST).

“We’ve also invested in a range of voluntary and community sector organisations to increase access to mental health services for the Berkshire population.

“The data also reflects that there has been a significant increase in referrals for Autism and ADHD assessments over the last few years, partly due to greater public awareness.”

The figures also suggested a drop in the number of people admitted to inpatient mental health care at the trust’s facilities.

However, the spokesperson explained this was due to changes made to ‘out of hospital’ care that have provided more alternatives to admissions.

They said: “We’ve seen a decrease in the number of in-patient admissions following improvements to our ‘out of hospital’ crisis/home treatment services for children, adults and older adults, so there are now more alternatives to admission available, resulting in fewer patients requiring in-patient care; however, we will admit a patient if they do require treatment in an in-patient setting.

“Patients who do require admission are generally more complex with high acuity.”

The 2018 figures showed 1,044 inpatient admissions to mental health care in the trust’s sites and services, which had fallen to just 733 by 2023.