Associations between patient characteristics at referral and social worker care coordinator allocation in mental healthcare: a retrospective cohort study.

Social worker care coordination is linked to more complex mental healthcare histories in 327,056 episodes (10.6% social worker), including longer time since first referral (IRR 1.05).

• Why it matters: Care coordination varies by coordinator profession, but it is unclear how referral characteristics relate to who is assigned and what prior service use and symptom burden accompany that assignment.
• What they did: In a retrospective cohort from 2007–2023 in a South London mental healthcare provider, adults aged 18–65 were grouped by coordinator profession using electronic health records, focusing on social worker episodes and 12-month pre-start service use and symptoms.
• The result: After full adjustment, social worker allocation is associated with more prior compulsory detention hospitalisations (1.11), more home treatment team days (1.25), more emergency department mental health contacts (1.10), and higher symptoms on all scales.

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