Access to financial support during the pandemic

Ensuring people can get the right support is a crucial first step towards breaking the links between mental health problems and financial difficulty. But accessing support has been a serious challenge for many people during the pandemic.

Our research shows that most people did not use Covid-related support like payment holidays.

Disclosing a mental health problem to an essential services provider — such as water, telecoms, local authority or energy — can be very difficult. Most people who disclosed a mental health problem during the pandemic received additional support, but a significant number did not.

While the responses that people received after disclosing a mental health problem varied, it is notable that only small numbers of people report having positive outcomes such as “being treated fairly” or “signposted to other organisations that could help”.