Health and Care Experience Survey 2023/24: Mental Health Analysis

Introduction

The Health and Care Experience Survey collects data on people registered with a General Practice in Scotland. This includes data on people accessing and using General Practice and out of hours services. It asks people’s views on the care they received, how they accessed those services, and information about respondents’ characteristics.

The fieldwork for the survey began in October 2023 and respondents were asked to think about the last time they received treatment or advice from their General Practice or out of hours service in the last 12 months.

Data is collected on whether people received treatment or advice from their General Practice for a mental health reason. Data is also collected on whether people had an underlying mental health condition, regardless of the treatment or advice they received.

While this summary primarily focuses on the reason why someone receives treatment or advice, data on whether people have an underlying mental health condition is available in the supplementary tables, which can be found in the supporting documents associated with this report.

People can indicate they received support for more than one issue. If this is the case, we present data for people where at least one of the reasons they have received treatment or advice was for their mental health. 

Policy Background

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, published in June 2023, noted that mental health has been and always will be an essential part of General Practice and that mental health issues are a common feature of consultations. However, community and primary care mental health data has been consistently highlighted as a gap, including in the Audit Scotland review of Adult Mental Health Services in 2023.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan, published in November 2023, set out the initial actions the Scottish Government and COSLA would progress with partners to deliver the ambitions in the Strategy. The plan highlighted the need to drive a shift in the balance of care across mental health to ensure a focus on prevention and early intervention in the community.

An internal Scottish Government Mental Health in Primary Care and Communities Governance Group was established to develop actions to deliver this and, following a period of engagement with key partners, the Scottish Government will publish a report to update on progress.

In order to better understand the experiences of people accessing mental health support through their General Practice or out of hours care, this report provides the first detailed analysis from the Health and Care Experience Survey specifically focussing on mental health. This supports the ambition to improve the community and primary care data that is available and to inform ongoing work towards the delivery plan.

An Official Statistics Publication for Scotland

These statistics are official statistics. Official statistics are statistics that are produced by crown bodies, those acting on behalf of crown bodies, or those specified in statutory orders, as defined in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Scottish Government statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

More information about Scottish Government statistics is available on the Scottish Government website.