Crisis services and planning for a crisis

This guide explains what mental health crisis services are available, how they can help and when to access them. It also explains how you can plan for a crisis. If you're feeling in crisis right now, see our emergency advice.

View this information as a PDF (new window)

Mental health crisis helplines

If you're in crisis and need to talk right now, there are many helplines staffed by trained people ready to listen. They won't judge you, and could help you make sense of what you're feeling.

Samaritans. To talk about anything that is upsetting you, you can contact Samaritans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You can call 116 123 (free from any phone), email [email protected] or visit some branches in person. You can also call the Samaritans Welsh Language Line on 0808 164 0123 (7pm–11pm every day).
SANEline. If you're experiencing a mental health problem or supporting someone else, you can call SANEline on 0300 304 7000 (4.30pm–10pm every day).
National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK. Offers a supportive listening service to anyone with thoughts of suicide. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652 (6pm to midnight every day).
Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). You can call the CALM on 0800 58 58 58 (5pm–midnight every day) if you are struggling and need to talk. Or if you prefer not to speak on the phone, you could try the CALM webchat service.
Shout. If you would prefer not to talk but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258. Shout offers a confidential 24/7 text service providing support if you are in crisis and need immediate help.
The Mix. If you're under 25, you can request support by email using this form on The Mix website or use their crisis text messenger service.
Papyrus HOPELINEUK. If you're under 35 and struggling with suicidal feelings, or concerned about a young person who might be struggling, you can call Papyrus HOPELINEUK on 0800 068 4141 (24 hours, 7 days a week), email [email protected] or text 07786 209 697.
Nightline. If you're a student, you can look on the Nightline website to see if your university or college offers a night-time listening service. Nightline phone operators are all students too.
Switchboard. If you identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, you can call Switchboard on 0300 330 0630 (10am–10pm every day), email [email protected] or use their webchat service. Phone operators all identify as LGBT+.
C.A.L.L. If you live in Wales, you can call the Community Advice and Listening Line (C.A.L.L.) on 0800 132 737 (open 24/7) or you can text 'help' followed by a question to 81066.
Helplines Partnership. For more options, visit the Helplines Partnership website for a directory of UK helplines. Mind's Infoline can also help you find services that can support you. If you're outside the UK, the Befrienders Worldwide website has a tool to search by country for emotional support helplines around the world.

Urgent mental health helpline

England

If you live in England, you can call a local NHS urgent mental health helpline for support during a mental health crisis. Anyone can call these helplines, at any time.

These helplines offer similar support to a crisis team. The NHS website has more information on urgent mental health helplines, including how to find your local helpline.

Wales

In Wales, you can contact NHS 111 and select option 2. This will put you through to an NHS helpline offering 24/7 urgent mental health support. Visit the NHS 111 Wales website to find out more about this service.

Once a girl actually answered the phone and kept me talking through my thoughts and suicidal feelings for almost three hours! To her I shall be eternally grateful!

How could they help me?

Listening line staff will let you talk through your feelings and experiences without judging you or telling you what to do. Many listening services let you talk for as long as you need.

Before calling a helpline, you might want to consider:

What times are they open?
Is it free to call or is there a cost involved?
Is what you say confidential? For example, many services have policies on what to do if someone says they have attempted suicide or are actively planning to.
What will you do if the line is busy? It's often worth trying several times, or you might plan to call back later or try a different service.

You might be able to find this information on the organisation's website, or you could ask the advisor to explain their policies during the call.

I saw the number of a charity crisis line (similar to Samaritans), phoned and someone listened and had time, which actually helped me.

If you can't talk on the phone

As well as phone numbers to call, some organisations routinely offer support in other ways – which could include emails, messages or web chat. Or you might need to make a specific request:

Some organisations are required to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities, which could include providing other forms of communication. See our page on what are services and public functions? in our guide to disability discrimination for more information.
If you have difficulty hearing or speaking, it might help to use the Next Generation Text Service (NGTS) Typetalk/Text Relay app on a mobile device or computer.
If you need a translator or British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter, you could ask the organisation if they provide a translation service and if it costs anything to use.

Was this page useful? Yes No Tell us more Tell us more

Tell us more

Why did you visit this page? *

For my own mental health
For someone else’s mental health
Academic/educational/professional reason
Other reason

What do you want to tell us about?

Praise – things we do well
Criticism – things we could do better
Errors, mistakes or broken links

Please give us your feedback:

Note:

Please don’t include personal details like your name or email address. If you do, data protection law means we’ll have to delete your comments.
Unfortunately we can’t reply to this. If you want a response from us, see our Contact us page.
If you are in crisis right now and want to talk to someone urgently then you could call Samaritans on 116 123 (freephone). Our pages on crisis services have more options.

There has been a problem submitting your feedback.

Thankyou for providing your feedback.

This information was published in October 2018.

This page is currently under review. All content was accurate when published.

References and bibliography available on request.

If you want to reproduce this content, see our permissions and licensing page.

Campaigning

Volunteering

Membership