News

This week we have a clinical message from Dr Sujaa Arokiadass, Deputy Chief Medical Officer. It shares findings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) Community Mental Health Survey (2025) published on 31 March 2026. It notes areas the Trust performed well in, areas where improvement is needed, and next steps.

CQC Community Mental Health Survey 
The survey looked at the experiences of 12,319 service users across 50 NHS Trusts in relation to specialist care or treatment received for a mental health condition between 1 April 2025 and 31 May 2025. In total, 240 service users of North London NHS Foundation Trust responded. Participants were asked about their experiences of different aspects of care and treatment including crisis care, involvement in their care, support provided to their family or carers, and support while waiting for care.

Scores range from 1 to 10. The higher the score, the better the performance.

Survey findings 
Feedback scores relating to our performance are set out below.

Feedback scores from the CQC Community Mental Health Survey (2025)

Survey question	NLFT	Compared with other Trusts nationally	Compared with other  London Trusts (CNWL, ELFT, NELFT, Oxleas, SLAM, SWLSG, WLMHT)*
Support while waiting for care	6.6/10	About the same
Mental Health Team (including feeling listened to, receiving the help they need, being given enough time to discuss needs and treatment, being treated with care and compassion)	6.8/10	About the same	Joint top with CNWL and WLMHT
Your care (including care planning, care review, choice in decisions, being given a diagnosis)	6.9/10	About the same	Joint top with SWLSG
Medication (discussions)	7.3/10	About the same	Top
Psychological Therapies (privacy during therapy)	9.0/10	About the same	Joint top with CNWL
Crisis Care Support (including support for family/carer)	5.6/10	About the same	Among the top 2
Crisis Care Access	7.8/10	About the same	Among  the top 2
Support with other areas of life (including work, social activities, physical health, finances, involving family)	4.5/10	About the same	Joint top with WLMHT
Support in accessing care	5.2/10	About the same
Respect, dignity and compassion	7.9/10	About the same
Overall experience	6.9/10	About the same	Joint top with CNWL
Feedback (being asked to give feedback)	3.7/10	About the same

 

*Other London Trusts include: Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL), East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT), North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT), Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust (Oxleas), South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLAM), South West London and St. George's NHS Mental Health Trust (SWLSG), West London NHS Trust (WLMHT).

How we have performed
Within London, we were in joint top place for overall service user experience alongside CNWL, compared to 7 other similar organisations.

Our performance scores in NLFT were more or less similar to the national average scores.

Areas for improvement
We have used the learning from this survey to identify some areas for improvement (where we scored below 5):

1. Asking patients to provide feedback regarding the quality of care received (3.7/10)

2. Supporting service users with work (2.9/10) and social activities (4.9/10)

3. Providing information or support to family and carers (4.9/10)

4. Supporting service users with finances (4/10)

5. Reducing the need for service users having to repeat mental health history in teams (4.9/10)

Next steps 
1. Relevant care groups will lead discussions in their quality meetings and produce and implement actions as needed.

2. Frontline teams are encouraged to discuss findings in Team business/reflection meetings and to consider actions for improvement.

Read the CQC Community Mental Health Survey (2025) results in more detail.

Did you find this clinical message useful? 
If you have any queries or feedback about this clinical message contact Dr Sujaa Arokiadass, sujaa.arokiadass1@nhs.net.