Coventry and Warwickshire Mental Health Needs Assessment (2021) - Publications

Social care and health

Health and Wellbeing Board

This Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) aims to provide an understanding of adult mental health and wellbeing needs across Coventry and Warwickshire. The assessment incorporates national and local evidence to support local priority setting and action.

Poor mental health and wellbeing has a large impact on people’s lives in Warwickshire and Coventry. This needs assessment has highlighted several key themes across the several of the chapters:

High levels of poor wellbeing and mental ill health. All services and organisations in Coventry and Warwickshire will be seeing patients, clients or service users with mental health issues. This means that mental health is an issue that every organisation deals with, and organisations need to consider how they support staff and service users with mental health issues.
Difficulty in accessing or understanding available services or support. This finding was particularly true amongst groups with protected characteristics or living in more deprived areas. This means that there are people who could benefit from services and support who are not currently doing so.
Growing future demand. This is either due to better diagnosis and recognition of mental health issues, and a general increased level of poor mental health. This shows the need to take preventative approaches to reducing mental ill health and intervene early to prevent it from worsening. It is also a challenge to the health and care system about managing that increased need.
The short and long term impact of the pandemic. There have been changes to society which influence mental health, such as increased unemployment, and social isolation. These have impacted on how people access services, as well as leading to worsening of the mental wellbeing of young people and women in particular. Including mental health in organisational recovery plans is crucial to respond to this.

The need to act on mental health is highlighted through several key documents nationally and locally. This includes The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and the NHS Long Term Plan, as well as the National Suicide Prevention Strategy.