Health and Care Services for People Sleeping Rough: the views of people with lived experience
This report from the University of York and the King's Fund highlights the views of people with lived experience of rough sleeping on health and care services.
The research from the report is in the form of focus groups people with at least one experience of rough sleeping in their life - where respondents were in the 30-45 age group.
The questions in the focus group were on the topics of:
- Overall experiences of rough sleeping
- Impacts of rough sleeping on health
- Homelessness services and access to health and care services
- Information on health
- Flexibility in the mainstream NHS
- Using specialist NHS services
- Mental health services
The main findings from the report were that:
- Where specialist health services for homeless people were present, there was universal awareness of them.
- The most urgent self-reported issue faced by rough sleepers were problems with mental health.
- The majority of information on health and wellbeing that rough sleepers found came from the internet.
The report additionally presents quotes from anonymous rough sleepers to highlight the issues that they face on a daily basis.