Mind’s Big Mental Health Survey 2025
Mind commissioned M·E·L Research to deliver the Big Mental Health Survey 2025, a major study exploring how people in England and Wales experience and access mental health support across primary care, voluntary/third sector organisations, and digital platforms.
This large-scale survey — the first since 2019 — was designed to provide post-pandemic evidence on how well people are being supported when they reach out with a mental health problem. It forms part of Mind’s eight-year programme funded by the Dangoor Family’s Exilarch’s Foundation, with future waves planned for 2026, 2028 and 2030.
The research addressed complex questions:
- Are people’s mental health needs being met by primary care and voluntary sector services?
- What barriers prevent people from accessing support?
- How do experiences differ for young people, people in poverty, and racialised communities?
- What role do digital apps and platforms now play in mental health support?
Given the sensitivity of the topic and the diversity of participants, this project required careful ethical design, robust safeguarding, and inclusive engagement. Sensitive survey content also demanded clear signposting to support services for participants throughout.
The Approach
M·E·L Research worked collaboratively with Mind to redesign and relaunch the Big Mental Health Survey using a rigorous, inclusive, and trauma-informed methodology.
Collaborative Survey Design
- Reviewed the 2019 survey to ensure continuity and comparability while refreshing the content to reflect new post-pandemic realities.
- Conducted nine cognitive interviews with recent users of mental health services to test question clarity, sensitivity, and emotional impact.
- Incorporated new questions on digital support tools (e.g. apps, online therapy, peer platforms).
- Included age-specific signposting to crisis and support organisations before and after the survey.
Online survey hosted at bigmentalhealthsurvey.co.uk, live from 6 January to 31 March 2025.
- Promoted through Mind’s national and local networks, retail shops, social media, and paid campaigns via Meta and Google Ads.
- Boost samples were achieved for key under-represented groups: Young people (16–25), people from racialised communities, people experiencing poverty, residents in Wales.
- All responses were subject to stringent quality control checks (e.g. completion time, duplication, open-text validity).
- The final dataset comprised 18,177 valid responses, making it one of the largest mental health experience surveys in the UK.
Analysis and Reporting
- Data analysis segmented results by demographics, region, and service type, highlighting where experience gaps existed.
- Trend comparisons were drawn with 2019 data to identify progress or deterioration over time.
- Thematic analysis of open comments captured qualitative insight to complement quantitative findings.
- Key definitions (e.g. “racialised communities”, “in poverty”, “young people”) were consistently applied to ensure clarity and comparability.
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