Centre for Mental Health

Mental health services urged to measure what matters to help people get and keep jobs

9 June 2009

Mental health and employment services should report regularly how well they help people to get and keep paid work, according to a policy paper we published today.

Measuring What Matters presents a set of key indicators for mental health and employment services. It calls for these indicators to be used routinely so that service users and their families can see how well services are performing.

The indicators measure not just how many people using mental health services gain and sustain paid work. They also test the local labour market, the needs of their users and how well services do what is known to work in terms of helping people with mental health problems into employment. This means they provide a rounded view of how well services are doing in their local context.

The indicators were road-tested by Sainsbury Centre and the NHS Confederation's Mental Health Network in 17 sites across England to make sure the indicators were easy to collect and offered meaningful data to test services' performance.

Sainsbury Centre associate and an author of Measuring What Matters Geoff Shepherd said: "In today's world, that which is not measured is often not done. Too many people with mental health problems are excluded from the benefits of paid employment. We know how best to help them to overcome these barriers. The indicators we have designed will assist providers, commissioners, service users and government to see how well services are making that possible.

"We hope that the Government and the Care Quality Commission will use these indicators to support the uptake of Individual Placement and Support (IPS - see right) across the country."

Sainsbury Centre employment programme director Bob Grove said: "Measuring what matters is especially important in a recession. It would be all too easy to write off people with severe and enduring mental health problems from getting work in an adverse labour market. We must not fall into that trap. Instead, we need to encourage services to do what works and to give them the tools to work out how well they are performing."