Older LGB people have lived through direct discrimination in mental health services and there is not enough research exploring the effects of this on both the mental health of older LGB people and how they access services now.
State of Care 2017/18 (pdf) is the Care Quality Commission’s annual assessment of health and social care in England.
The report looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve.
The report finds:
- Some longstanding issues need national action. More work is needed to implement the Accessible Information Standard to improve communication with disabled people using health and social care services
- There is slow progress in improving equality for NHS staff from BME groups and new gender pay gap reporting has highlighted inequality for female staff in the NHS
- People from BME groups have much higher rates of detention under the Mental Health Act than White people nationally, and many people working in mental health believe that this trend is increasing
- People aged 65 and over with mental health issues are less likely to have access to talking therapies, despite evidence that these approaches can be highly effective for this age group
