The Centre for Mental Health says that major investment in services, staffing and buildings is needed to move towards compassionate and timely care in a crisis.
The Centre for Mental Health says that people in a mental health crisis are facing a postcode lottery of care, with certain groups such as children and young people sometimes unable to access care suited to their needs.
The report says that rising levels of need for emergency mental health care, coupled with short-staffing and dilapidated buildings in inpatient services, are placing current systems under major pressure. And too often, people’s experience of inpatient care can be coercive and re-traumatising.
The World Health Organization warned earlier this week that Europe needs to spend more on mental health. In Britain, Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, and the party’s spokesperson for health and social care, told Healthcare Today earlier this year: A significant number of people are unable to work due to poor mental health, and accessing treatment is often frustratingly difficult. Ensuring proper support is available is not just a healthcare issue – it is a social and economic imperative.”
Despite the standard of care patients received improving, the average time a person in a mental health crisis spent in A&E last year was an hour more than in 2023.
Compassionate and timely
The Centre for Mental Health report argues that major investment in services, staffing and buildings is needed to move towards compassionate and timely care in a crisis. However, it also cautions that superficial changes or tokenistic attempts at reform will fail to achieve systemic change.
“Acute and crisis care are essential elements of our mental health care system. At their best, they save lives and are there for people when they most need urgent help. Too often, however, people struggle to get help in a crisis, and many report that their experiences of crisis care and hospitalisation create traumas of their own,” said Andy Bell, chief executive at Centre for Mental Health.
The report summarises research from the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Mental Health about ways of supporting people in a mental health crisis. It sets out the evidence about community-based alternatives to hospital care, such as crisis houses, day units, home treatment teams and crisis cafes, which enable people to get support closer to home.
The provision of alternatives to hospital care is inconsistent, and what’s commissioned doesn’t correspond with the available evidence of what’s effective.
