What is it about?
People who have poorer mental health also tend to have poorer physical health, and they also tend to die younger. It is possible that these people are not having their health needs addressed properly by healthcare systems and services. We wanted to find out whether people with poorer mental health use emergency healthcare services, like A&E, more often than others, after differences in things like age and sex were taken into account. We analysed data from 2013-2017 from emergency care services in Sheffield, a large city in the UK. We found that people who were receiving support for a mental health issue were up to 5 times as likely to use services including the NHS 111 advice line, to attend A&E, to call an ambulance or to be admitted to hospital for an emergency health problem than the rest of the local population. They also tended to show signs of having more serious health problems than others, for example being more likely to stay in hospital for over a week, or to arrive at A&E by ambulance. However, they were also more likely to come to A&E for a minor health problem than other people.
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Why is it important?
This study tells us that there is a problem somewhere in how people with poorer mental health are having their healthcare needs addressed, because they need to use emergency care more often. This may be because their health needs are really complex and so harder to provide for, or because they find it harder to seek help for a health problem before it becomes really bad. There also might be times when people with poor mental health have more 'health anxiety', so use emergency services when they could be seen by a GP or pharmacist. This study tells us that we need to be managing the health of these people better, so that they have fewer emergency health problems, and so that they only use emergency health services when they need to.
Perspectives
I hope that this article helps people to see how important it is that we do a good job of looking after people with mental ill health. In the UK, we have really long waiting lists for support for people with mental illness, and this needs improving. We also need to be better at giving more rounded and cohesive support around their complex physical and mental health needs. This will help not only them, but will also help to ease pressures on a really stretched emergency healthcare system.
Jen Lewis
University of Sheffield
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Use of urgent, emergency and acute care by mental health service users: A record-level cohort study, PLoS ONE, February 2023, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281667.
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