2020 Community Mental Health Survey

The Care Quality Commission’s summary of survey findings is clear that “Positive results, where the majority of people reported good experiences of care, are few”. It adds that “changes made to care and treatment due to the pandemic have negatively impacted the mental health of many service users, with 48% reporting that their mental health ‘got worse’ because of these changes”.

There is some good news in the area of ‘organising care’, where 96% of those who had been told who is in charge of organising their care, knew how to contact this person or team. Similarly, 90% of people felt the person who organised their care did so ‘very well’ or ‘quite well’. Feedback on ‘medicines’ is also positive: 63% ‘definitely’ had the purpose of their medicines discussed with them – an increase of six percentage points since 2019.

Access to care is less good: only two in five people (41%) had ‘definitely’ seen services enough for their needs in the last 12 months, while almost one in five people (17%) said that care and services were not available when they needed them. 15% said they were not given enough time to discuss their needs, and 42% had waited ‘too long’ to receive talking therapies.

More people need help from crisis care services as a direct result of the pandemic, but 26% would not know who to contact out of office hours. Of those who did try to contact a crisis team, 20% did not get the help they needed.

On communication and involvement, just 41% of all respondents ‘definitely’ agreed what care they would receive, and only half (52%) were as involved as much as they wanted to be in planning their care. This is the lowest reported result for this question in eight years. Similarly, only half (50%) of those who had received NHS talking therapies were involved as much as they wanted to be in deciding which therapies to use. Over a quarter of people (28%) had not been told who was in charge of organising their care.

Financial stability, employment and good physical health are key components of good mental health, but almost half reported not receiving help or advice with finances or benefits, or finding/keeping work. A further 39% did not receive support for their physical health needs. In addition, only half (51%) said that services ‘definitely’ involved a family member or someone else close to them as much as they would like.