Joint working between providers and the NHS to support student mental health

Our case studies and resources provide practical advice for higher education providers on approaches to joint working with the NHS for student mental health.

Case studies

Our £6 million mental health Challenge Competition funded 10 projects to help universities and colleges generate new and innovative collaborative approaches to improve outcomes for students. Several of the projects developed innovative approaches to partnership working with the NHS.

Improving student mental health through partnerships

The University of Liverpool was the leading partner for a Liverpool-based project working with regional partners to develop an integrated model of support for student mental health.

The project aimed to develop an integrated approach between universities and the NHS, offering seamless referral pathways and shared protocols supported by a clear risk management strategy which clearly specifies the responsibilities of partner agencies and allows for more effective planning for services to meet the varying and escalating needs of students.

Student mental health partnerships

In this project, the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), led a partnership across five English cities to improve care for students in need of mental health support through the development and evaluation of local partnerships between universities, the NHS and students' unions.

The project aimed to improve local care pathways, co-produce the design and delivery of care with students and practitioners, share best practice through a National Learning Collaborative (led by Universities UK) and evaluate effective models of partnership working.

Resources

• Universities UK ‘Minding Our Future: starting a conversation about the support of student mental health’ report (2018): contains guidance to improve the coordination of care between the NHS and universities, so that all students can access the care they need.
• Student Services Partnerships Evaluation and Quality Standards (SPEQS) toolkit: a practical toolkit for service managers and practitioners striving to develop partnerships to respond to diverse student mental health needs.
• Stepchange: Mentally healthy universities (2021): a strategic framework for adopting a whole university approach to mental health
• The University Mental Health Charter (2019): a framework and programme of work that rewards universities for good practice supporting mental health and wellbeing.
• Mind the Gap: Improving student mental health support through higher education and NHS partnerships: A briefing from Wavehill, the independent evaluators for the mental health Challenge Competition
• Our student mental health guide
• Our topic briefing on suicide prevention: includes advice, examples and resources for higher education providers.
• Resources for higher education providers from OfS mental health Challenge Competition projects
• The National Learning Collaborative provides a regular forum for university-NHS partnerships to share and test new pathways and models of care for student mental health. It is supported by Universities UK (UUK), GuildHE and Independent Higher Education (IHE) in partnership with Student Minds and AMOSSHE
• UUK briefing note on NHS and university partnership working