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Overall Patient Experience Scores: 2016 Community Mental Health Survey update

Today NHS England published the latest statistical information on patients’ experience of mental health services in the NHS. This is an update to include results from the 2016 Community Mental Health Survey.

This survey is part of a rolling programme of NHS patient surveys overseen by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which cover a range of services including outpatients, A&E, children’s inpatient and day-case, maternity and adult inpatient.

Further supporting information, including an accompanying methodology statement, is available for this series by going to:

The 2016 survey included 58 NHS trusts in England, including combined mental health and social care trusts, Foundation Trusts and community healthcare social enterprises that provide mental health services.

Eligible patients were aged 18 years or over, who had received specialist care or treatment for a mental health condition in September, October or November 2015.

Responses were received from nearly 13,300 patients, with a national response rate of 28%.

The survey shows that the Overall Patient Experience Score for community mental health services increased between 2015-16 and 2016-17, up from 74.7 out of 100 to 75.2 out of 100, though this change is slight.

On average, a score of 60 suggests patients found the service ‘good’ and a score of at least 80 suggests patients found the service ‘very good’.

National Clinical Director for Mental Health Tim Kendall welcomed the survey.  He said: “I am very pleased that we are doing very well in a number of important areas. For example, more than 9 in 10 (93%) service users say the person or people they saw listened carefully to them; and the majority (89%) of service users say they were given enough time to discuss their needs and treatment. And overall, two-thirds of service users rate their experience as very good. In some areas, such as crisis care, we still have a lot to do. Much of the work we are now focussing on in the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health is aimed to improve patient experience and to get timely access to high quality services; and for people in crisis this is now a major priority for me and the team over the next few years.”

3 comments

  1. First Aid Training Melton says:

    While we have a growing public discourse as to the severity of mental illness and the importance of obtaining treatment, particularly amid the presidential election season and promises of changes to the American health care system, the consequences of non-treatment, we see precious little attention to the consequences of bad treatment.

  2. Colin Caldow says:

    Improving levels of staff understanding of goals and how to achieve them would seem to be a key to improving the quality of care.

    Concentrating more on what mental health actually is, and how it can be achieved, within the education system for children and adults alike needs to be a key focus. Dealing with mental illness would then become more of a support to the building of good health.

  3. Nora Everitt says:

    OK. So 2 out of 3 people think MH services are ‘very good’ but you accept that in crisis care there’s ‘a lot to do.’
    In my town we are trying to set up a User-led MH Forum and are hearing of so many community services and peer support groups being lost, not funded.
    Surely these services are the ones that help prevent MH crises by creating the day-to-day support spaces where people can see others deteriorating, help them recognise it themselves and to get help – before it becomes a crisis.
    Why don’t the managers concentrate on the 1 in 3 who feel services are NOT very good – ask them why, what would make them better and listen to the answers.
    User-led MH Forums have so much to offer in this NHS crisis, people know what works. They don’t need lots of statements saying how much better services are because more people say so.
    They need to be involved, as experts themselves, in making services better for those that are being failed by the statement writing, statistic focused people who concentrate on numbers not people.
    MH Crisis is life-threatening – one suicide is one too many.
    What about the managers looking at the number 0 as a target. Zero suicides!