The public experience: Mental health and wellbeing
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Healthwatch North Yorkshire reported on a snapshot of people’s experiences of health and care services across North Yorkshire, focusing on mental health. They received 139 responses to their survey, including 21 responses for the organisation focused survey and 118 for their individual focused survey.
They asked organisations to identify the top three issues facing their service users. GP services were identified as the top current issue, followed by mental health and social care.
The majority (61%) of individuals responded that they had experienced mental health or wellbeing issues in the past 12 months. The most common mental health issue experienced was anxiety, followed by stress and depression.
Just under half of respondents (47%) said they did seek help for their mental health issues. Of those who did seek help, the majority got in touch with a GP, talked to their family/friends or looked online (via Google) for support.
Barriers to seeking mental health support included long waiting lists to access support, staff attitudes, stigma around mental health, and impersonal care.