Abstract
To explore whether people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities experience equality of access and outcome in individual placement and support (IPS) employment services. Cross-sectional data were analysed of all people with severe mental health problems who accessed two mature high-fidelity IPS services in London in 2019 (n = 779 people). There were no significant differences between the proportions of people who gained employment. The data strongly suggest that people from BAME communities are not differentially disadvantaged in relation to either access to or outcomes of IPS employment services. The challenge for mental health professionals is not to decide who can and who cannot work but, how to support people on their case-loads to access IPS and move forward with life beyond their illness.
Highlights
It is recognised that people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities both perceive[1] and experience inequality in access,[2] experience and outcomes[3] within mental health services in England
ORIGINAL PAPER Perkins et al Individual placement and support and BAME communities secondary adult community mental health services in the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Harrow and Hillingdon (CNWL provides individual placement and support (IPS) services in Milton Keynes but data from this service were not included in the current study because this was a relatively new service and our focus was on mature London services); (b) Working Well Trust (WWT) IPS service, which works in partnership with East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) serving people using secondary adult community mental health services in the borough of Tower Hamlets
To explore equality of access to IPS services for those from BAME communities, for each service the number of people of different ethnic communities accessing the service was compared with the ethnic breakdown of those using secondary adult community mental health services in the boroughs served, using a χ2-test statistic for goodness of fit
Summary
In both services, the proportions of White and Asian/ Asian British clients accessing IPS were similar to those in the population of people using secondary adult community mental health community services. A separate analysis was conducted considering only those who had accessed the service in the first half of the year (between 1 January and 30 June 2019) and had had the opportunity of at least 6 months’ support
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