Accessing community mental health support: tell us your views

Results updated 28 Feb 2025

We asked

From August to October 2024, we ran a survey asking people about the experience of trying to get community mental health support in East Sussex in the previous six months. This included services provided by voluntary and community organisations, GP surgeries, specialist mental health, and adult social care. The support could be either for the respondent themselves, or someone else.

The aim was to understand what is working well, and what we need to change to ensure people in the county can get the mental health support they need. 

The Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust website provides more details of this work.

You said

In all, 112 responses were received. Respondents were most likely to be female (69%), White British (79%) and aged 18-64 (75%). Heterosexual respondents (67%) were under-represented compared to East Sussex population figures (89%), while gay, lesbian and bisexual respondents were over-represented.

Based on GP surgery registration, most respondents’ hometown was in an urban area (78), although 23 lived in a rural area.

Most (54%) said they had no experience of drug or alcohol issues.

People who sought and received an offer of support for their mental health in the last 6 months (43)

21 found it very difficult or difficult to access support. Commonly this was due to:

• lack of resources or information on available services;
• being passed to different services;
• long appointment or assessment waiting times;
• administrative errors;
• language barriers;
• needing to reach crisis before an offer was made; and
• not being listened to or fully understood by a GP.

11 found it easy or very easy to access support. Commonly this reflected:

• being seen quickly;
• swift response times; and
• the process being straightforward.

20 were very satisfied or satisfied with the support they received, with slightly fewer (17) very dissatisfied or dissatisfied.

Reasons for being satisfied included good staff attitudes, and regularity of contact with them; speedy responses and short waiting times; recognition of need; choice of ways to contact; and the fact that the support had helped them recover.

Dissatisfaction reasons included poor staff attitudes; long waits; inappropriate offers; lack of staff consistency or joined up multi-agency approaches; failure to respect individual needs; and insufficient early intervention.

People who sought but did not receive an offer of support (51)

The two main reasons for not getting mental health support were that the request for support was turned down/not accepted (21), and that the wating time was too long (13).

 

People who have not sought support for their mental health in the last 6 months - including those who chose not to despite feeling that they may have benefited from support (18)

Most (14) felt they may have benefited from support in the last 6 months, while 4 did not.

Reasons for not seeking support included:

• being unsure of what they might need;
• fearing that the process would be lengthy;
• getting help elsewhere;
• unhelpful previous experience; and
• a belief that what is available is not helpful.

Further comments or suggestions about accessing mental health support, and ways to improve people’s experiences and remove barriers

79 respondents offered their views.

Suggestions included:

• better information sharing;
• a wider range of support (including courses);
• better access to support (including out-of-hours support);
• swifter access to support;
• need for more funding;
• better support on neurodivergence;
• more use of talking therapies;
• a dedicated prescription line;
• more focus on relapse prevention;
• do not promise things that aren’t available;
• better guidance on what treatment may involve before seeking it;
•  

Comments included:

• adverse influence of social media on younger people;
• insufficient or inefficient staff (including triaging by unqualified staff);
• effect of feeling stigmatised on ability to seek help;
• feeling that less severe conditions take priority for professionals;

 

We did

Findings were presented in December 2024 to the Community Transformation Partnership Group, a multi-agency group of health professionals responsible for making improvements to local mental health services. The main conclusions were:

1. Further work is needed to engage with people from groups who did not respond to this survey in great numbers. These are:

• older people,
• men,
• people living in rural areas,
• people from LGTQI+ communities,
• people from minority ethnic backgrounds, and
• people with co-occurring mental health and drug/ alcohol issues
   

2. Several written responses said that online/ phone appointments were being over-relied upon. Further analysis is needed to determine whether this is disproportionately felt by people in rural areas.

 

3. Responses, both positive and (predominantly) negative, consistently highlighted the importance of:

• the length of time people needed to wait for services;
• receiving an offer without having to ask multiple times/ approaching multiple services;
• being kept up to date with progress and around changes to support offers;
• services working in joined up ways; and
• the attitudes and manners of staff.

Looking ahead, the Neighbourhood Mental Health Team model being rolled out across East Sussex aims to address several of the issues. Once this model becomes embedded, there may be value in repeating this survey, to understand its impact.