A ground-breaking mental health support line launched by City of York Council ten years ago is still going strong more than 56,000 calls later!

Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the line has received more than 4,000 referrals during its ten-year history and is thought to be the only facility of its kind in the country to be funded as a core council service.

Since last July, the support line has also received £20,000 in funding from North Yorkshire County Council towards the cost of expanding the service to cover the Selby and Easingwold areas. This is included in the £105,000 that it costs to run the service and means that a second phone line now operates at peak times. The support line is an integral part of the mental health services managed by North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust.

The support line was initially launched in response to the government's 'national service framework' for mental health and was considered both ground-breaking and ambitious. It received 400 referrals in the first year and demand has continued to rise steadily, with most referrals coming from community mental health teams and GPs,  and others coming from a range of statutory and voluntary services.

Those referred to the support line are people likely to benefit from access to an out-of-hours service and this is reflected in the fact that the majority of calls are received in the evenings when other services are closed. Although callers will be experiencing mental distress, they won’t necessarily have a serious mental illness. They can speak to the highly trained staff running the support line about anything from the everyday stresses of modern life that are causing them distress, as well as major crisis points that trigger depression, serious mental illness and self-harm.

Mags Hyett, who manages the service for City of York Council, explained: "We keep the criteria for access broad because it is a service for people to access and we don't want them to have to jump through hoops to do that.

"We talk to people about what is happening now and how we can help them to move forward. We work with callers to help them develop ways of managing their mental health needs in the long term."

One of the ways that the support line differs from other similar services is that the council staff receiving the calls will intervene in a situation if they feel it is appropriate and will also share information with whoever has referred a caller to the service.

Mags explained: "Any information that we receive is received in confidence, but we will pass information on to referrers as necessary to ensure the safety of the caller and continuity of care.

"I am incredibly proud of the service; it is fantastic and makes such a difference to people. I firmly believe that we have had an impact on preventing suicides and hospital admissions, although it is, obviously, difficult to quantify. The feedback that we receive from users of the support line and referrers is very positive and there is no doubt that many of them see it as a lifeline.

"I'm sure that many people thought the support line wouldn't last, but it is still going strong and we are looking to develop it  further in the future. There is undoubtedly a need for it."