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People whose loved ones have died face waits of several months for bereavement counselling, “elongated” by unwieldy NHS systems.
NHS “talking therapies”, which are recommended by GPs to people seeking support with bereavement in England, were set up primarily for anxiety and depression sufferers, the clinical director of the UK’s leading bereavement charity has said.
Andy Langford of Cruse said that people referred to talking therapies by their GP must wait for a general assessment before being referred for a second time to a specialist bereavement provider. “In the vast majority of instances, a talking therapy service will go: ‘we don’t work with grief so you’re going to have to go to Cruse’,” he said.
It could take a couple of weeks for the charity to allocate a trained bereavement volunteer or several months, he noted.
“Someone’s waiting time is elongated by having to wait for talking therapies to do the assessment and then the conversation [to say] that’s necessarily not the right service. Then they refer on to us or another provider,” Langford said.
Demand for bereavement support is rising, say charities. More than a quarter of a million people called The Samaritans in 2023 seeking bereavement support.
Waiting times for talking therapies were six weeks or less for 92 per cent of referrals, according to recent NHS data. But many say they have to wait far longer for the right support.
Cruse has 83 branches in England, covering 60 per cent of areas. It also operates in Northern Ireland and Wales. The bereavement charity supported more than 22,000 people one-to-one in 2022 but is now struggling with demand.
Hannah Coom lost her mother to cancer in March 2024 and found herself caught between different services. She sought support from an Essex hospice but encountered a 10-month wait.
The 28-year-old instead chose to see a GP but was told to wait six months before seeking general counselling. “But the reason I went to the GP instead of the hospice was because I was so unwell,” she said.
Five months after her mother’s death, she was contacted by NHS talking therapies personnel. She had two-to-three rounds of assessment before they decided she needed “employment support”. “So I didn’t actually get any talking therapy sessions,” she added.
Having passed the six-month “checkpoint”, Hannah, who said she had experienced suicidal thoughts, saw a second GP who left her without the support she needed.
“I was turned away from that appointment with nothing, that if I didn’t want to take antidepressants then there was nothing else they could do for me,” she said.
“I’m still having symptoms of inability to sleep, flashbacks, nightmares. I’ve just found myself to feel continually shocked that a person can be in so much pain and going to so many places asking for help and there isn’t anything.”
Amelia Wrighton co-founded her charity Suicide&Co in 2020 to help people bereaved by suicide, nine years after her mother took her own life. “When we did our research into the sector, there was just a gaping hole in service provision for people bereaved by suicide,” she said.
Demand for Suicide&Co services has soared since its creation, with wait times tripling from two to six weeks last year.
Cruse experienced similar trends during the Covid pandemic. Langford said demand initially dropped in 2020 when people parked their “emotional needs” to prioritise physical health but struggled to meet demand when services moved online during lockdown. The emergence of “suppressed emotional experiences” post-crisis had resulted in a demand surge.
“There aren’t any big grants, there isn’t an NHS contract . . . effectively what we’re doing is subsidising the NHS,” he added
“Losing a loved one can significantly impact our lives . . . which is why we’ve invested record amounts into bereavement services and suicide prevention,” said Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s national director for mental health.
The NHS has invested £57mn into suicide prevention and bereavement services during 2019-2024. Despite the increased funding, the fundamental hurdle remains the lack of a joined up network, according to charities.
“A lot of services are quite disjointed,” Anna May, 2020 founder of the Student Grief Network, said. “Some GPs might have a brilliant understanding of how to support someone through grief, or which services they can signpost to, other GPs won’t at all.”
Langford at Cruse said there was a need for a restructuring of NHS services. “There needs to be a network approach to funding services, not a focus solely on what is at the highest clinical need.”
If you are struggling after a bereavement you can contact Cruse, the Student Grief Network, The Samaritans or Suicide&Co
