NHS crisis care for people with mental health problems is “under-resourced, understaffed and overstretched”, according to research by mental health charity Mind.

It has released the results of three pieces of research that together paint a picture of services that are unable to support thousands of people every year, at a time when they need help the most.

Information was obtained through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to mental health trusts, including Bradford District Care Trust, a service user survey of almost 1,000 people and data from a research project.

One of the findings is that four in ten mental health trusts, including the Bradford trust’s crisis team, have staffing levels below established benchmarks.

Figures for Bradford from January to March 2012 show the average caseload of people receiving home treatment from the crisis team was 88 and the crisis team had 41 members of staff, excluding doctors and administration staff, meaning it was 18 per cent below what is should have been.

Mind is now calling on the new Clinical Commissioning Groups to make crisis care for people with mental health problems a priority.

Paul Farmer, chief executive of Mind, said: “We are deeply concerned that some crisis care services appear to be struggling to support people with mental health problems when they need help the most.

“We know that excellent crisis care exists, but we need it available to everyone, regardless of where they live. Good services can make a huge difference to whether someone recovers from the crisis, yet Mind often hears from people who have been turned away because they ‘aren’t suicidal enough’ or who have been made to wait around for hours just to be seen by someone who can help them. An emergency is an emergency.”

Nicola Lees, deputy chief executive at Bradford District Care Trust said: “The data used in Mind’s report was gathered from Freedom of Information requests based on figures from March 2012. The report uses a very general measurement for the way care and treatment is provided across England and Wales.

“The way care and treatment is provided across the country is structured differently and Bradford District Care Trust services are developed to meet the demands and challenges of the local population. We continue to tailor our services for the people we serve whilst working to national targets.

“Handling mental health problems early in the community means that hospital care can be prevented and the right support made available to patients who need it, quickly. We are confident our staffing numbers now exceed the national benchmark system used in this report.

“We did have an exceptionally high caseload at the time figures were sourced but were one of only 33 per cent of trusts in England and Wales who met national targets to assess crisis patients within a four-hour timescale. We provide 24-hour, seven-days-a-week support, using home treatment as the preferred option to a hospital stay.

“Of the people we saw, two-thirds were able to be treated in their own home by our Intensive Home Treatment Teams and so avoided hospital treatment. We think this is an example of a service that is working well.”

For more information about the Mind report visit mind.org.uk/crisiscare.