Young Healthwatch A&E Report

Key Findings

• Of the young people with lived experience of attending A&E for a mental health crisis of their own - only 4%contacted services themselves.
• 57.5% of young people said that they ‘have no idea what to expect’ from A&E if they went there during a mental health crisis.
• Young people were most likely to contact emergency services if a friend or relative was showing signs of psychosis and behaving dangerously due to hearing voices or seeing visions (83.5%), or if they had plans to complete suicide, or were threatening to harm themselves fatally (81.5%).
• While 73% of respondents were either ‘very’, ‘fairly’, or ‘somewhat’ happy with the idea of using A&E as a place of safety, all 30 of the comments provided expressed doubts about doing this. The main reasons for these doubts include; not knowing what A&E would do, long waiting times, and a chaotic environment.
• We asked young people which services they knew were available in a mental health emergency. Ambulance service (999) was the most well-known(71%), followed by the Samaritans and the Police. Non-emergency lines (111/101), the Sussex Mental Health Line, and MHRRS (Mental Health Rapid Response Service) were the least well known.
• 50% of young people identified somewhere they would have preferred to have gone to go to than A&E,whereas 50% said that there wasn’t anywhere they would rather have been seen.
• When asked what the most important factors of a safe space are, young people told us that staff friendliness was the most important, along with being communicated with to make sure they clearly understand what is happening and what decisions are being made about their care, and having staff who were experienced and knowledgeable around mental health.
• When asked to describe better alternatives to A&E, many described a mental health specific safe space that was calm and had experienced mental health staff present. A number specifically mentioned YMCA Safe Space on West St, and at home.
• We asked young people the same question as the ‘friends and family test’ –39% of young people were unlikely to recommend the A&E service, whereas 54% were likely or extremely likely to.
• We asked young people who had used A&E in a mental health crisis to score factors such as comfort, staff friendliness, and accessibility –staff friendliness achieved the best score, with waiting times scoring the most negatively.