Survey of users of mental health services 2008
This is the fifth annual survey of community mental health services carried out by the Healthcare Commission.
The survey included 68 NHS trusts that provide secondary mental health services (including combined mental health and social care trusts, and primary care trusts that provide mental health services). Secondary mental health services provide care to people in psychiatric outpatient clinics or through a local community mental health team.
Over 14,000 service users took part in the 2008 survey, which is a response rate of 35%. The results of the survey offer a valuable insight into the experiences of service users, and can be used to improve the quality of the care they receive.
Although service users aged 16 and above were included in the sample for the survey, only those aged 16 to 65 are included in the briefing note, the national spreadsheets and the benchmark reports, in order to enable a fair comparison of the results with those from previous years.
There are a number of supporting documents for the 2008 survey:
Press release on 2008 community mental health survey
Click here to view the press release
Supporting briefing note highlighting key issues
The briefing note is based on respondents aged 16 to 65.
Supporting briefing note (pdf 41kb) (opens new window)
Full 2008 results with historical comparisons
These tables show the national percentage results from the 2008 survey compared with previous years (where questions have been asked previously). The results are based on respondents aged 16 to 65.
Full 2008 results with historical comparisons (pdf 1740kb) (opens new window)
Trust-by-trust percentage results
These tables show the percentage of responses for all questions in the survey, the tables are based only on respondents aged 16 to 65:
Section A Service User Questionnaire 2008 Your care and treatment (xls 97kb) (opens new window)
Section B Service User Questionnaire 2008 Health professionals (xls 158kb) (opens new window)
Section C Service User Questionnaire 2008 Medications (xls 89kb) (opens new window)
Section D Service User Questionnaire 2008 Counselling (xls 76kb) (opens new window)
Section E Service User Questionnaire 2008 Care coordinator (xls 76kb) (opens new window)
Section F Service User Questionnaire 2008 Care plan (xls 92kb) (opens new window)
Section G Service User Questionnaire 2008 Care review (xls 90kb) (opens new window)
Section H Service User Questionnaire 2008 Support in the community (xls 97kb) (opens new window)
Section I Service User Questionnaire 2008 Crisis care (xls 91kb) (opens new window)
Section J Service User Questionnaire 2008 Standards (xls 81kb) (opens new window)
Section K Service User Questionnaire 2008 Your family or carer (xls 85kb) (opens new window)
Section L Service User Questionnaire 2008 Overall (xls 89kb) (opens new window)
Section M Service User Questionnaire 2008 About you and response rates (xls 100kb) (opens new window)
Individual benchmarking reports for each trust
We have produced a benchmark report for each trust, which presents the individual results for that trust. These reports can be used to understand how well a trust is performing compared with national results. In order to allow fair comparison with previous years, the benchmark reports are based only on respondents aged 16 to 65. Click on the link below to view individual benchmark reports for each NHS trust:
Individual benchmarking reports for each trust: A-Z list
Questionnaire
More information about the survey, including the guidance and publicity material issued before the survey, is available on the NHS surveys website.
Most reports on this site are PDF files, to view any PDF file you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader.