Mental Health Service Provision for the People of Cambridge: Are services facilitating recovery?

Abstract

The purpose of the present research was to investigate consumer perspectives of mental health service provision in Cambridge and whether services were helpful in facilitating recovery. Cambridge is a small township in the Waikato region, approximately twenty-five kilometers south-east of Hamilton. The study aimed to: gain an understanding of consumers’ interpretations of recovery; identify consumer perspectives of service delivery in Cambridge; assess whether services in Cambridge are working from a recovery ethos; and determine how consumers’ think service delivery could be improved. Interviews with 14 consumers of mental health services were completed. The key findings of this study suggest that the mental health needs of Cambridge consumer’s were not being met. More specifically, consumers’ who had severe or mild mental illness were reasonably happy with service delivery. However, consumers whose mental illness impacted their life considerably, yet their symptoms were not deemed severe enough to access public services, identified significant discrepancies between service provision and recovery facilitation.