Community mental health survey 2024

Page last updated: 4 April 2025

What we found

The results show that people are continuing to have poor experiences of NHS community mental health services. Particularly around crisis care support, information about medication and support for wider needs. There has been very little change in results compared with 2023; however, there has been positive changes for support accessing care and information about some aspects of their medication. There has been a small increase for people not getting the help they needed from services.

Positive results

There are few areas where many people reported good experiences.

Support to access care or treatment

There has been an increase in people being asked if they need support to access care and treatment, from 41% in 2023 to 44%.
Of those that required support to access their care and treatment, 32% felt the support provided completely met their needs, an increase from 29% in 2023.

Medication

Whilst the majority of respondents reported receiving medication for their mental health needs (83%), 77% said they were asked how they were getting on with their medication.
There has been an increase in people definitely being told what would happen if they stopped taking their medication, from 39% in 2023 to 41% in 2024.

Privacy of care settings

Seventy-four per cent said they definitely had enough privacy to talk comfortably during psychological therapies and a further 19% felt this ‘to some extent’.

Key areas for improvement

Quality of Care

Nearly a quarter of all respondents (23%) said they did not get the help they needed from their mental health team, an increase compared with 22% in 2023.

Crisis care

In a crisis, 78% know who to contact out of hours. Over a quarter of respondents (27%) did not get the help they needed when they did make contact.
Nearly half (47%) of respondents said no support was offered to their family or carers while they were in crisis.

Support while waiting

While waiting between their assessment with the NHS mental health team and their first appointment for treatment, 40% of people did not receive support for their mental health.
Forty-four per cent of respondents felt that the waiting time was too long and 42% reported that their mental health deteriorated while they waited for their first appointment (although a decrease compared to 44% in 2023).

Planning and involvement in care

Over a third (38%) reported that they did not have a care plan and 43% had not had a review meeting to discuss their care.
Over a third (36%) reported having no choice in how their care was delivered and around a quarter were not supported to make decisions (23%) or felt in control of their care (28%).

Support with other areas of life

Low levels of help or advice in accessing support for other areas of life was reported by respondents. Nearly half (44%) received no help or advice for joining a group or activity. No help or advice was offered to 69% of people in finding work, or 67% in support for financial advice or benefits.
Thirty-nine per cent of respondents did not receive support for physical health needs, but they would have liked this.

Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS)

Results for people using CAMHS indicated poorer experiences across multiple areas of care.

Forty-five per cent of respondents waited 3 months or more for their first appointment for treatment and over half (53%) received no support while waiting (although a decrease compared to 60% in 2023).
In a crisis, 33% would not know who to contact.
Forty-three per cent said they did not have a care plan and 44% have not had a review meeting in the last 12 months.

Older people’s mental health services (OPMHS)

Survey respondents using OPMHS generally reported more positive experiences of interacting with their mental health team.

Seventy-three per cent of respondents felt the mental health team listened to what they had to say.
Always being treated with care and compassion was reported by 82% of respondents (although a decrease compared to 85% in 2023).
Involvement in agreeing a care plan to a large or very large extent was reported by 79% of respondents.

How experience varies for different groups of people

Respondents reporting worse than average experiences across multiple questions included younger people (aged 16-35), disabled people and autistic people, as well as people who access services over the telephone. Areas of care for which these groups reported worse experiences included being treated with care and compassion, feeling listened to, being given the help they needed from services and being supported to make decisions about their care and treatment.

Results for NHS trusts

A-Z list of results by NHS trust

Each trust has been provided with a benchmark report, which provides: details of the survey methodology, headline results, the trust score for each evaluative question, and banding for how a trust score compares with all other trusts.

Community mental health survey 2024: Benchmark reports

Reports

Open data

Supporting information

How will results be used?

We will use the results from the survey to build an understanding of the risk and quality of services and those who organise care across an area. Where survey findings provide evidence of a change to the level of risk or quality in a service, provider or system, we use the results alongside other sources of people’s experience data to inform targeted assessment activities.

Other organisations

NHS trusts

Trusts, and those who commission services, use the results to identify and make the changes they need to improve the experience of people who use their services.

NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care

Information collected nationally in a consistent way is essential to support public and Parliamentary accountability. The results are used by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care for performance assessment, improvement and regulatory purposes.