Spring grants 2025 insight report – Croydon

Healthy communities and mental wellbeing

Executive summary

The South West London (SWL) 2025 spring engagement programme in Croydon focused on understanding local residents’ access to NHS services, healthy lifestyle behaviours, and views on mental wellbeing, particularly among Core20 and underserved communities.

We know from previous community conversations, our voluntary sector partners and frontline services have repeatedly highlighted that mental wellbeing is a growing concern. Rising living costs, housing problems, caring for others and feeling safe in the community have all made people’s lives more difficult – particularly for people from Global Majority communities, people in temporary housing and those living with long term conditions or disabilities.  Priority one of Croydon’s Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy is ‘good mental health and wellbeing for all’ which supports the need for further engagement.

To support the move to neighbourhood working, we have organised the data by key neighbourhood areas in Croydon.

28 local voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations were funded to deliver over 60 activities and to have in-depth conversations with over 1,000 people from a range of ethnicities, socio-economic and health backgrounds.

Key borough wide findings:

• Access to NHS care: combined issues of long waiting lists, confusing pathways, limited appointments and transport issues all presented challenges, particularly for older people, people with disabilities, refugees and asylum seekers.  Confusing online systems, reliance on apps, and lack of translated materials exclude people from accessing information and appointments.
• Physical health prioritised over mental health due to cultural beliefs, low awareness of services, stigma or fear of dismissal:This is particularly prevalent amongst women, caregivers and people who are neurodiverse.
• Pressures on wellbeing and daily life: including the rising cost of living, poor housing, limited access to healthy food, green spaces create stress, anxiety.  People feel social connection is one of the most important factors for good wellbeing but feel there is a lack of safe, accessible spaces and insufficient funding for community services which contributes to loneliness.
• Building trust through inclusive care: language barriers, poor understanding of different beliefs and/or cultures and a lack of staff from diverse backgrounds leave people feeling unheard or excluded. People from Global Majority communities shared experiences of racism, mistrust and stigma from health and care services.  Trust in services is fragile, especially for mental health services and diagnostic processes with combined fear of being judged, perception that the system is stacked against certain groups leading to greater trust with community, faith and peer networks.
• Value of community and social support: important to be led by familiar voices and faces are valued for being culturally sensitive and accessible to people’s needs.

Key mental wellbeing findings:

• Delaying seeking help until it feels critical: long waiting lists, lack of clarity about services, fear of judgement or misunderstanding by health professionals can delay people seeking help, particularly amongst Global Majority communities.
• Accessible and practical information including in multiple languages is needed to improve accessing services, particularly for refugees and asylum seekers.
• Awareness of mental health services and support: there is low awareness of counselling and uncertainty about accessing talking therapies due to lack of trust.  Mainstream mental health advice can feel out of touch with it described as “Infantilising, patronising”, particularly for people facing poverty.  Refugees and asylum seekers experience confusion around which services they are allowed to access and whether they would be charged to access support.  Difficulties with getting referrals, missed letters, unclear pathways can lead to frustration and ultimately ‘burnout.’
• Stigma and mental health: exists in some communities with people preferring to consult their family first or wait for symptoms to feel better.  Mental health is shaped by cultural upbringing and gender stereotypes, for example many women were more comfortable normalising their issues as “depression” rather than mental health and avoiding conversations even with their closest family members and friends.
• The value of representation, peer and community support: people feel more understood and comfortable when supported by staff from diverse culture and similar backgrounds often preferring trusted local voices, peers and community leaders over unfamiliar professionals.

Next steps

The insight gathered in this report is presented by neighbourhoods to support the development of our neighbourhood health and care approach in Croydon.

The insight gathered in this report is being shared with One Croydon Alliance partners including the Croydon public health team to support the mental wellbeing priority within the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy. It is also being reported to the South West London Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group to inform action plans for improving mental wellbeing across our six boroughs and Croydon Health Management Board to inform the development of the Quality and Digital strategies across Croydon Health Services.

The findings are being reported and discussed further with our local and health partners in Croydon and across South West London to agree next steps.