Lucy Nicolaou, who runs the early-intervention service, said there had been a rise in the number of people seeking help due to feeling lonely and isolated – something she believes could continue throughout the winter.
The waiting times for the Listening Lounge are currently two weeks for an initial assessment and four weeks to begin therapy.
When approached by the JEP, the government declined to give a full list of current waiting times for the Island’s mental-health services.
Mrs Nicolaou said: ‘We have managed to maintain good waiting times since we opened two years ago.
‘However, it is really important that we bring down waiting times across the board and in order to do that there needs to be a focus on working collaboratively, rather than acting as individual services.
‘I think the Island could benefit from introducing a lived-experience engagement framework which would allow those who have experienced mental-health issues to have input in government policy and gives them an opportunity to
contribute to decisions around service design.’
The Listening Lounge opened just before the Covid-19 pandemic started and is celebrating its second anniversary this month. In that time the service has supported almost 3,000 Islanders across 10,000 appointments and is helping up to 130 new people each month.
Mrs Nicolaou said that women currently accounted for 60% of their appointments and the predominant age group was between 25 and 44, which accounted for half of the people they saw.
She believes that the number of appointments is only going to rise in the coming months.
‘Covid has not gone anywhere and we are still in limbo over what will happen this winter, and that could have a negative impact on people’s mental health,’ she said. ‘The increase in demand for our services has gone up incrementally month on month, and so it is very possible that we are going to see this continue.
‘Depression, stress and anxiety have been the leading three factors we have seen in Islanders who have reached out for our help throughout the pandemic.
‘More recently we have seen people come forward with concerns around unemployment, as well as feelings of loneliness and isolation.
‘If this upward trend continues we need to respond as an island and as a whole mental-health system.’
