A significant proportion of people who access community mental health support have faced major delays, a new survey from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has revealed.
The survey of 14,000 people found four in 10 (40%) felt they had waited ‘too long’ for care.
A third of people (33%) had waited three or more months for their first community mental health treatment and of those, four in 10 said they did not receive any support while they waited for the appropriate treatment.
As a result, 42% of people said their mental health worsened while waiting for care.
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The CQC warned people were unable to receive the timely care they need and pointed to significant workforce issues.
Its new report, published today, highlighted the vacancy rate across the mental health sector being at 9.9%, with over 10,000 empty mental health nursing posts.
Survey findings also revealed one in 10 (10%) patients said they were not treated with dignity or respect when accessing mental health support.
And three-quarters (77%) said they were not signposted to help or advice with the cost of living, ‘even though this can be a significant driver of mental health issues’, the CQC said.
The survey also showed a rise in young people using Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) needing support in accessing care, with 30% requiring support with this compared to 22% in 2023.
Concerningly, more than a third (36%) of young people who did access crisis care said they did not get the help they needed and in more than a third (36%) of instances no support was given to their family or carers during the crisis.
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However, the report found that the majority (87%) of young people using CAMHS felt involved, to some extent, in their care planning.
Interim director of mental health at the CQC, Jenny Wilkes, said: ‘This report lays bare the devastating reality that people are still not getting the mental health support they need, when they need it.’
She added: ‘Workforce issues and underfunding need to be addressed urgently in order to drive the improvements that people with mental health issues need and deserve.’
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Speaking to Nursing in Practice last November Dame Rachel de Souza, children’s commissioner for England, stressed the importance of championing children’s mental and physical healthcare and pointed to the key role school nurses play in providing this care.
