Mental health crisis support: what are we hearing in Kent and Medway?

From September 2024, Healthwatch Kent and Healthwatch Medway started to receive more feedback on people’s experiences of support in a mental health crisis. They heard some positive feedback where people had accessed support that had helped them prevent or recover from a mental health crisis. Healthwatch did, however, also hear from some people sharing experiences in which individuals had tragically died. In December 2024 and February 2025, they presented summary reports to key stakeholders in the Kent and Medway mental health system on what people had told us about support in mental health crises. 

To understand in more depth what people were saying, Healthwatch analysed 489 related experiences from January 2024 to February 2025. These emerged from what people had told Mental Health Voice, Healthwatch Kent and Healthwatch Medway without any targeted prompts for mental health crisis. People told about understanding, supportive and helpful care and how positive interactions had enabled them to manage their mental health, keep them safe and help them to recover. When people had less positive experiences, key issues included waiting times for crisis support, ineffective crisis response, and unsuccessful coordination or continuity of care between services.

This report provides further detail on people’s experiences of crisis support, analysis of the underlying themes and trends for key services and recommends next steps.