Improving emergency care for people in mental health crisis: actions for change
Action four: Build a shared picture through data and insight
Why this matters
Without a common understanding of demand, delays and risk, organisations act in isolation. Data, combined with lived experience, enables a single and aligned view of the system.
What works in practice
All teams agreed that data was essential, yet 87 per cent reported challenges accessing or sharing meaningful data across organisations. Despite this, data played a vital role in developing shared understanding and shaping improvement. Teams used available data to identify pressure points, benchmark practice and inform future data collection, even where formal outcome measurement was still evolving.
Tips from the teams
- Start by using data to understand the problem, not just to prove impact.
- Use a combination of quantitative data and qualitative insight, including staff and patient experience.
- Agree a small number of meaningful measures, even if data quality is imperfect.
- Treat early phases as an opportunity to learn which data matters and what needs to be developed longer term.
- Data can be critical in understanding populations and reducing inequalities, especially in understanding impact of racial inequalities in your services.
- Consider focusing on information governance early in any improvement approach to understand any limitations, what can be resolved and what the opportunities are.
Improvement work in progress
Yorkshire
In Yorkshire, the team used data at all stages of their improvement programmes to understand the problem, identify measures they would like to improve and to highlight early improvements. During winter, the trust had good bed availability and used data to understand why patients were admitted and to support flow back out and discharge.
The team significantly improved patient flow through a number of measures:
- Implementing weekly system escalation meetings with partner organisations for patients who are clinically ready for discharge.
- Introducing daily inpatient ward huddles to support timely decision-making.
- Embedding purposeful admission, ensuring admissions are appropriate and value adding.
- Introducing locality-focused working to improve coordination of care closer to home.
- Improving weekly barriers to discharge and multi-agency discharge events.
- Improving in-reach from community teams to inpatient wards.
- Working with commissioners to develop effective alternatives to admission.
- Strengthening cross-system working with acute partners.
The impact of the improvement outcomes as part of the system work to improve patient flow saw an increased ability to manage the same demand more effectively. This resulted in a decrease in the average wait per person for an adult mental health inpatient bed (between August 2025 and February 2026).
Surrey Heartlands
In Surrey Heartlands, the team carried out a number of detailed audits in order to understand the extent of the problem before creating a solution. This included reviewing 400 patient records (accessed from SystmOne) following their ED attendances across the five acute trusts in Surrey. In addition to the deep-dive audit, data was collected from SECAmb, the ICB’s population health data, and from the acute trusts.
The investigation work led to a number of successful outcomes:
- 50 per cent of all ED attendances for patients with mental health difficulties were transported via ambulance.
- 74 per cent of patients with mental health challenges who were in ED for 12 hours or more are known to community mental health services.
- 80 per cent of patients with mental health challenges who were in ED for 48 hours or more are known to community mental health services.
This data deepened the understanding of the system to the landscape they were operating in and informed the actions they undertook through the programme. This included ensuring the ambulance service contacted the MH Single Point of Access prior to conveying to A&E to discuss options and agree plan together. Early results showed this reduced the number of people taken to A&E after contact with the MH Single Point of Access, with a more suitable and appropriate plan agreed with and for patients.
Key takeaway
A shared, data-informed view of the system enables coordinated action and faster improvement.