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NHS Adult Community Mental Health Service User Survey 2024 | News and events

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NHS Adult Community Mental Health Service User Survey 2024

Adult Community Mental Health Survey

The results of the NHS Adult Community Mental Health Service User Survey 2024, which is commissioned by the CQC, have been published.

The survey is conducted by IQVIA. The results include a comparison of NSFT performance against our results from previous years, as well as against the average performance within a national comparator group of organisations.

In 2024 there were 40 questions about the service user’s experience in the survey (excluding questions relating to demographics) and the results are presented in terms of both absolute numbers responding to each question as well as percentages for each response.

255 NSFT service users completed the survey in 2024 but not every service user answers every single question as some questions were not relevant to all.

Some of the questions have had their wording amended slightly from the 2023 survey and an additional question has been added. The new question added is “Did you feel your NHS mental health team listened to what you had to say?

Our People Participation Team have produced a summary of the results which focussed on a few key areas within the IQVIA report that showed material variation, both positive and negative, in NSFT’s performance against the national average.

Result highlights

Areas of strength – where NSFT performs better than the national average:

  • The 2024 survey response shows significant improvement in care and access to treatment for NSFT service users in relation to waiting times. 14.3% of 2024 NSFT respondents said they had no wait at all compared to 6.3% in the comparator group and 3.3% the previous year results for NSFT. Conversely, only 6.1% of NSFT survey respondents had a wait of over 6mths compared to 11.1% in the comparator group and 14.6% amongst 2023 survey respondents.
  • The survey results suggest NSFT continues to offer support to more service users waiting to access care and treatment from our mental health services (53.5% of survey respondents received full support) than comparative organisations (50.6%). A much greater proportion of NSFT respondents also felt the support provided was completely appropriate (58.7%) than comparator organisations (47.5%)
  • In 2024 50.4% of NSFT survey respondents stated that they have a care plan compared to 47.2% in the comparator group and 45.6% of NSFT 2023 survey respondents. A great proportion of NSFT respondents in 2024 also said they had their care plan review and that they were fully involved by their teams in agreeing their care plans. 

Where NSFT needs to make improvements:

  • A higher proportion of NSFT survey respondents found that their mental health deteriorated whilst waiting for the first appointment (42.4% NSFT vs 37.2% Comparator Group).
  • Only 44.6% of 2024 NSFT respondents felt they were given enough time by their mental health teams to discuss needs and treatment verses 50.6% for the comparator group and 48.7% in the Trust’s 2023 results.
  • 29.6% of 2024 NSFT survey respondents stated they didn’t get the help they needed from their mental health team against 21.1% for the comparator group. Only 47.3% of NSFT survey respondents reported that their mental health teams always listened to what they had to say compared to 53.3% of the comparator group.
  • Whilst there has been some notable improvements in the care planning process, only 24.9% of NSFT respondents stated that they felt fully supported by their mental health team in making decisions about their care versus 27.4% in the comparator group. The proportions that felt in control of their care was also lower for NSFT in 2024 (36.3%) than the comparator group (39%) and NSFT’s responses in 2023 (43.4%).
  • A lower proportion of 2024 NSFT survey respondents said they would know who to contact in a crisis (67.6%) compared to the comparator group (70.2%) and also significantly lower than 2023 (72.5%). 23.8% of 2024 NSFT service users responding to the survey who contacted crisis services in the past 12 months felt their wait to get through was too long compared to 20% in the national comparator group. Out of those survey respondents who contacted crisis services only 30.8% of 2024 NSFT survey responders got the help they needed compared to 41.2% for the comparator group and 37.4% of NSFT respondents in 2023.
  • In terms of support and wellbeing, NSFT has generally scored lower against the comparator group in relation to the provision of support to service users in all areas.
  • A greater proportion of 2024 NSFT service users (29.8%) who responded to the survey stated that the level of service they received was poor compared to the comparator group (22.8%).
  • 14.3% of 2024 NSFT service users who responded to the survey stated they were not treated with respect and dignity compared 9.5% of the comparator group.

Action our Trust is taking to make improvements to achieve better outcomes and experiences for our service users, families and carers

Last year the Trust implemented a five-year strategy with key strategic objectives; Improving health, improving care, improving culture and improving value. Aligned to those objectives are 12 largescale transformation programmes.

We have focussed efforts on reducing waiting times and these have been significantly reduced in our children and young people’s services and our adult community mental health services.

Whilst all of the Trusts transformation work is being delivered to ultimately improve our services and the experiences of those that use them, two of the transformation programmes link directly with our response to the result of this survey – those are our clinical transformation programme and our service users, carers and families transformation programme.

Our new chief transformation officer Stewart Gee is leading our clinical transformation programme.

A clinical transformation review has highlighted variability and gaps in service delivery. To help remedy this a new governance structure has been established to ensure programmes are co-ordinated, owned and monitored by the Trust. The priority areas for service improvement include:

  • Community mental health teams (CMHT) service model improvement programme
  • Crisis improvement programme (Crisis resolution and home treatment teams and 111 mental health option)

Both of these clinical transformation programmes directly align to the areas that have been identified as requiring improvement by the respondents to the Adult Community Mental Health Survey.

We have also invested in a new patient experience directorate which is led by our chief patient experience officer and deputy chief executive Cath Byford. This directorate takes direct responsibility for our service user, carers and families programme and places the experiences of those who use our services at the heart of our improvement journey.

The experiences that have been shared as part of this Adult Community Mental Health Survey, alongside the responses we receive from the NHS Friends and Family Test, are vital to this transformation programme. Current responses to the Friends and Family Test from service users across all services show an average of more than 80% of people reported receiving very good or good care – a significant increase on the figures from two years ago, which averaged in the mid 60% range. At the same time, we have seen over 40% more people on average completing these feedback forms over the past year.

Our new Service User and Carer Council is another vitally important component of our improvement programme and this transformation programme. The Council will make sure that the voices of service users and carers, such as those reporting experiences through methods such as this survey, are strengthened and are involved in our decision making as we continue to make improvements across our Trust. This year we will also introduce five locality specific Service User and Carer Councils to help us to make sure that experiences relevant to local services are heard and acted upon.

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