FOI 2025/1526

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide me with the following information about

Background

I’m writing with regards to the case of REDACTED, who died by suicide last August. Joanne Kearsley, senior coroner for Manchester North, raised concerns about gaps in crisis support text services in England in her recent Prevention of Future Deaths report.

Greater Manchester Integrated Care’s response to that report, attached below, stated “NHS GM has commissioned SHOUT (Shout is a free, confidential, 24/7 text messaging service for anyone who is struggling to cope) previously and took the decision to discontinue after one year in 2020/21 based on an evaluation by Health Innovation Manchester and negative service user feedback online.”

Questions

1. Please provide a copy of the evaluation of SHOUT by Health Innovation Manchester, cited in your response to Joanne Kearsley’s report.

2. Please provide copies of any reports, memos, advice, guidance or other written assessments conducted by or for Greater Manchester Integrated Care’s board and management team about Health Innovation Manchester’s evaluation of SHOUT.

3. Please provide copies of any correspondence, including but not limited to letters, emails, and text messages, between Greater Manchester Integrated Cares board and management team and SHOUT about Health Innovation Manchester’s evaluation, and the subsequent decision to discontinue the contract with SHOUT.

4. How many complaints did Greater Manchester Integrated Care receive from service users and relatives* about SHOUT during the year that it was contracted to provide crisis text support? (*Or complaints from members of the public if that’s how the data was recorded.)

1. Please note that information redacted within the report is out of scope of the request.

**A PDF document was sent to the requester with this response.  If you require a copy of the full response, together with the attachments, please contact NHS GM’s FOI team – nhsgm.foi@nhs.net **

2. NHS Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (NHS GM) was formed on the 1 July 2022 following the merger of the 10 former Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) of Greater Manchester (being NHS Bolton CCG, NHS Bury CCG, NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale CCG, NHS Manchester CCG, NHS Oldham CCG, NHS Salford CCG, NHS Stockport CCG, NHS Tameside and Glossop CCG, NHS Trafford CCG and NHS Wigan Borough CCG).

The decision not to renew the contract with SHOUT was made prior to establishing NHS GM. Following appropriate searches, NHS GM can confirm that it does not hold the information requested.

Please note that routine emails and correspondence are generally retained for up to 2 years under NHS information governance policies, unless they form part of official records retained for longer under the NHS Records Management Code of Practice.

3. Please refer to the response to question 2.

The decision not to renew the contract with SHOUT was based on the Health Innovation Manchester evaluation, commissioning priorities at the time, and recognition that GM residents would still be able to access the nationally commissioned service provided by SHOUT.

The contract was not terminated. NHS GM is expected to prioritise funding in line with national requirements, and we are commissioning a crisis text service in 2025/2026 in line with national requirements and following due process in terms of provider selection, i.e. by March 2026.

4. Since NHS GM was established, we have received 0 complaints about SHOUT.