Mental health acute inpatient services survey 2009
Our 2009 survey of people who had recently had an inpatient stay for acute mental health problems was the first of its kind and collected responses from over 7,500 people. The survey asked people all about their experiences of acute inpatient mental health services along the pathway from admission to leaving hospital, including the care and treatment they received, day-to-day activities, and relationships with staff.
Key Findings
- Most patients’ admissions began well, with 85% reporting that staff made them feel welcome on the ward.
- 8% of respondents said that they had shared a sleeping area such as a room or bay with patients of the opposite sex during their most recent stay, with 92% reporting that this never happened.
- 86% reported having physical health checks in hospital – but only 44% of those with physical health problems ‘definitely’ felt that enough care was taken of theses.
- The survey showed limited access to talking therapies, with 29% receiving these overall and less than half of those who wanted talking therapies getting them.
- Less than half (45%) said that they “always” felt safe in hospital.
- There was a lack of activities available for inpatients, with 35% saying that there was too little to do on weekdays and over half (54%) reporting that there were not enough activities available to them at weekends or evenings.
- Patients were often not involved in their care as much as they wanted to be, with 34% saying that they were “definitely” involved as much as they wanted to be in decisions about their care and treatment.
- Many patients felt that they were not given understandable explanations about their care and treatment,– 48% said that the potential side effects of medicines that they were prescribed whilst in hospital were not explained to them in a way they could understand
- Only 28% said that staff on the wards “definitely” knew enough about their previous care and treatment, and 29% said they were not given information on how they could get help in a crisis after they were discharged.
Full 2009 results
Results for NHS trusts
The survey results are shown for each NHS trust that took part in the survey under the ‘Find care services' section of our website. This shows a broad overview of how well a trust is doing, with more technical details available alongside the summary.
To access survey results for an NHS trust, enter a postcode or organisation name, select a trust, and scroll down to ‘What patients said about this trust'.
Feedback reports for NHS trusts
We provided each trust with a summary report on its scores in the survey, so that the trust can benchmark its performance against that of other trusts to help them understand and improve their performance. To ensure fairer comparisons across the results from all trusts, survey data are standardised by age and gender. We do this because we know that the views of a respondent can reflect not only their experience of NHS services, but can also relate to certain demographic characteristics, such as their age and sex. Further information is provided in each report.
Download a guide to understanding and interpreting these reports (PDF, 84KB, opens in new window)
Questionnaire
This shows the scoring assigned to each question.
