Sarah calls on residents to share experiences of mental health crisis care

Sarah Champion, MP is calling on her constituents who have experienced a mental health crisis, or who have supported a friend or relative through one, to share their experiences of the help, care and support received with the health watchdog. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is seeking feedback from anyone who has tried to get help in a crisis, particularly in the last two years, to help improve its understanding of how local services respond.

Sarah is urging constituents to share their experiences with the CQC by completing the online questionnaire which is available at: www.cqc.org.uk/mentalhealthcrisis.

CQC will use the information in a number of ways to:

Build a picture of where mental health crisis care works well and where it doesn't.

Help select the local areas visited by CQC inspectors as part of this review.

Inform CQC's national report by showing differences in service provision across

England, and by highlighting examples of good or poor practice.

Sarah said I welcome CQC's appeal for people to share their experiences of the care they received during a crisis. When people are at a crisis they need support that treats them with respect, compassion and dignity. We hear too often that they cannot get the help they need when they need it. I hope the work the CQC is doing in this area will help us gain a greater understanding of the importance of local services working together to provide prompt, appropriate and effective support.

Later this year, CQC will publish a report on its findings from the review. This will look at the help, care and support experienced by people experiencing a crisis, including differences in approach across the country and highlighting good and poor practice where this is found.