The University of York has come fourth in the UK’s first mental health league table

The University of York has placed fourth in the UK’s first mental health-based league table.

The table ranks universities on mental health services offered to students and includes factors such as funding and wait times.

York achieved an overall score of 59.1 and placed below Reading, Oxford and The University of Central Lancashire.

The table, created by mental health charity HUMEN, ranks 80 of the UK’s biggest universities on the quality of their mental health services. The resource was created to help applicants make an informed choice about their university, meaning that it will be updated yearly like other league tables.

Russell Group universities Nottingham, Southampton and Newcastle all came in the bottom ten on the league table, and the University of Birmingham was at the bottom with a score of 32.3.

The universities were scored in five areas. “Student Satisfaction” includes overall mental health support and quality of mental health services and York scored 66.0. The “Engagement” score covers the proportion of students who would use the university services and York scored 70.9. For “Awareness” which looks at the proportion of students who know where to find help at university, York got 74.8. “Financing”, which identifies the university’s mental health budget per student saw York score 25.6. The table finally scored on “Provision” including staff training and wait times for which York earned 61.7, leaving the university with an overall mental health score of 59.1.

Mental health campaigner Ben West, who lost his brother to suicide in 2018, has been calling for such a league table for a long time. Over 40,000 people now have signed a petition he set up last year, calling for the leading UK university league tables to include mental health support services as part of their rankings.

“We can’t let young people keep just dying at university,” he told The Tab. “We need to stop people being okay with the fact that so many, hundreds and hundreds of people, are dying in their halls of residence in their accommodation at uni. It’s just appalling.”

You can see HUMEN’s full University Mental Health League Table here and The University of York’s mental health support services can be found here. 

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