No university spent more than Liverpool per applicant to its mental health services

No university spent more per applicant to its mental health services than Liverpool, according to our Mental Health Rankings 2017.

Liverpool’s spend of £719.29 per applicant to the university’s services in the 2015/16 academic year was the highest of any university in our rankings, and over double the average of £334.28.

Overall, we came 13th in The Tab’s Mental Health Rankings 2017 – the only study to assess the ability of the UK’s universities to care for students with mental health issues. You can read the full rankings here.

Now in their second year, the rankings compare 47 universities across the country to help establish who’s really got your back when it comes to mental health. This year we received over 9,000 responses to our mental health survey

The rankings take into account information about how well universities fund their mental health services, how long students have to wait for help and how satisfied students are with their university’s mental health services.

As part of a university’s duty of care, students who suffer from mental health have the right to support. By ranking these support networks, we aim to paint a true picture of mental health at university, and how it’s handled and of course increase awareness, both amongst students but also amongst university services.

Overall, Liverpool came 13th in the rankings.

16 universities spent more on their mental health services per student than Liverpool’s £20.38, but no universities spent more per applicant to the university’s services.

As a result, Liverpool scored  22.06 out of 40 for finance, with the national average being 17.15.

For satisfaction, Liverpool ranked 25th out of the 47 universities included in the survey, scoring 34.10 out of a possible 40, against a national average of 34.55.

Of the 15 universities to return data for waiting times, Liverpool came tenth, but overall Liverpool was ranked 12th.

Zoe, a third year Psychology student at UoL said: “The university acknowledging and recognising the importance of mental health services is really positive and the same amount should be invested into these services across all universities!”

Commenting on the results, Paul Redmond, Director of Student Experience and Enhancement, University of Liverpool, said: “We pride ourselves on listening and responding to students, working in partnership to continually improve the student experience.

“To further enhance the support services we provide we have made significant investments to develop campaigns and initiatives such as ‘Big White Wall’ which encourage students to talk more openly about mental health, as well as providing support services and effective signposting so that students know where to turn.

“However, we are not complacent and we will continue to work closely with our students and partners to continue to improve and develop the services we provide.”