Living Well UK: Community mental health systems

Inspired by Living Well Lambeth, a person-centred, holistic approach to supporting people’s mental health, our goal was to spread and scale the model to four localities across the UK, supported by the National Lottery Community Fund. 

Across Salford, Tameside and Glossop, Edinburgh, and Luton, Living Well systems support a diverse range of people: those who are ‘too complex’ for primary care and ‘not unwell enough’ for secondary care, and those who are on long waiting lists for limited, medicalised support that doesn’t take into account the social determinants impacting their mental health.

The impact of Living Well for people accessing support is significant: 

• Reduced waiting times of 14-25 days in Living Well systems, compared with nearly a quarter of people waiting more than 12 weeks to start treatment with standard services.
   
• Progress towards life goals: on average, Living Well participants make progress towards 3 – 3.5 life goals they set for themselves. 
   
  • In Tameside and Glossop there was a statistically significant increase in people reporting that they have a close friend (from 66% up to 81%) while the share of people participating in leisure or community activities nearly doubled from 26% to 48%.
     
• Improved quality of life with 60% of people experiencing meaningful improvement in their health and quality of life. 
   
• A cost effective service: in Edinburgh, of the 300 people the team initially worked with, just six were referred to formal therapy.

The approach

In Living Well systems individuals are treated as whole people and active citizens. Multi-disciplinary teams combine skills and insights to deliver holistic, person-centred care, drawing on people’s strengths and lived experience.

These systems are local, accessible, and community-rooted—each one shaped by its area, meaning support is easy to access and offered in everyday spaces, staff are connected locally, and communities are actively involved in promoting mental wellbeing. 

We supported the four sites to adopt the critical success factors and key features of Lambeth’s original approach, while allowing adaptation to respond as required to fit with local context.