Purpose: In England, community mental health rehabilitation teams play a major role in supporting people with complex mental health needs to progress from inpatient to community settings and from more to less supported accommodation. We aimed to conduct the first study to investigate longitudinal outcomes for users of a community rehabilitation team and identify service user characteristics associated with successful progress along the rehabilitation pathway.
Methods: We used routinely collected clinical outcome data relating to all 193 users of a community rehabilitation team in inner London, transferred to the team between June 2013 and May 2018, with a cut-off data-collection date of 20th June 2019. We estimated the proportion who moved on to more independent accommodation successfully, with no breakdown in the placement. We conducted multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression to investigate associations between service user characteristics at transfer and successful move-on.
Results: Overall, 43/193 (23%) service users achieved successful move-on during a median follow-up of 51 months (IQR 32-63). This was more likely for those who were residing in more highly supported accommodation (HR 3.90; 95% CI 2.01-7.54) and those who had better functioning (HR 1.04, 95% CI 1.02-1.06) at transfer, while those with a serious physical health condition were less likely to achieve successful move-on (HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.21-0.95).
Conclusion: Most supported accommodation services aim to offer time-limited support, but most service users do not progress successfully to more independent accommodation within 4 years. Investment in interventions that improve functioning and physical health may facilitate successful move-on.
Keywords: Community rehabilitation; Functioning; Mental health; Move-on; Physical health.