“I feel I can talk openly. I am heard, given guidance and support, and I know I can reach out if I am struggling.”
“Inclusive and very helpful.”
“Approachable, understanding, able to listen, empathetic and encouraging.”
These are just some of the comments we received from people who get support with us when we asked them why they would recommend West Sussex Mind as part of our latest service user survey; 87 per cent said that they would recommend us to someone who needed help with their mental health, a five per cent increase on our 2022 survey.
The survey was conducted between 2 October and 4 December 2023 and 269 people completed the survey. Users of all West Sussex Mind services were represented in the results and across the age range 16-65+.
Other key findings include:
- 81 per cent of service users were “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with West Sussex Mind services, a three per cent increase on our 2022 survey.
- 83 per cent of service users felt that West Sussex Mind had helped them to manage their mental health and emotional well-being.
- 91 per cent agreed that our employees are always/often respectful and inclusive.
Taking your feedback on board
Our annual service user survey is an important benchmark for how we are meeting the mental health needs of the communities we serve – and all our services invite feedback on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
You can read the full survey findings and how we are responding here, but here’s a snapshot of some of the changes we are planning:
- Help Point. Some people reported delays in receiving calls back from our Help Point at busy times. We are exploring ways to address this, but one immediate change is adding web chat to our website as another way of reaching our Help Point team in a timely fashion. Look out for this over the coming months.
- Out-of-hours services. Some people asked for more of these to fit in with work and other commitments. We are already offering some activities outside office hours in Worthing and Midhurst and Chanctonbury. Our services for families with young children, parents and young people provide some out-of-hours activities already and our Littlehampton support hub has also started piloting evening activities. We are always reviewing this, but there are sometimes constraints due to limited resources.
- Support for parents. Some survey respondents who were supporting their children and young people’s mental health requested more opportunities to meet other parents in a similar situation. We responded by launching parenting peer support circles at various venues across the county in addition to our fortnightly online group.
- Adapting our services for neurodiversity. Some service users said they thought that some of our services weren’t very accessible to those with neurodiversity. As well as running neurodiverse groups for young people online and specific groups in other areas, we are also training our staff in how to better support people who identify as neurodiverse. This is also a focus for our Equality and Diversity Working Group over the coming year.
See the full survey results and further details about how we plan to respond to the findings below.