Community Mental Health Services - 15,000 people give their opinion
- 13 Sep
Participants in the latest survey of community mental health services said they are treated with dignity and respect by the health or social care worker they had seen most recently.
However, some would have liked more support in getting help with aspects of day-to-day living.
More than 15,000 people responded to the survey by CQC about their experiences of community mental health services. People shared their experiences of services such as outpatient clinics, local teams providing crisis home treatment and more.
The majority of participants said that they:
- were treated with respect and dignity and were listened to carefully.
- had their views taken into account and had enough time to discuss their condition and treatment.
- had trust and confidence in the health or social care worker they had seen most recently.
- had the out-of-hours contact number of someone from their local NHS mental health service.
- could ‘always' contact their care co-ordinator/lead professional if they had a problem and that their care co-ordinator/lead professional organised their care ‘very well'.
However, the results also showed that people needed to be more involved in some aspects of their care.
- Over a quarter of those prescribed new medication in the last 12 months said that they were not told about possible side-effects, and over a tenth said that they were not given information about it in a way that was easy to understand.
- Around a third of those not on CPA said they did not know who their care co-ordinator/lead professional was.
- Some respondents said that they had not had a care review in the last 12 months.
A considerable proportion of respondents also would have liked more support from a member of staff with some aspects of day-to-day living including:
- physical health needs.
- caring responsibilities.
- finding or keeping work.
- finding or keeping their accommodation.
- financial advice or benefits.
To see the full results visit http://www.cqc.org.uk/public/reports-surveys-and-reviews/surveys/community-mental-health-survey-2012
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