Why students still face a postcode lottery in university wellbeing support

Over the last decade, UK universities have put increasing effort into supporting student mental health. This often means following frameworks: documents that outline good practice, typically developed by sector bodies and charities. Universities can adopt these frameworks to guide their approach to student wellbeing.

The difficulty is that the sector has relied heavily on voluntary frameworks. This means that universities can choose whether to engage, how fully to implement them and which elements to prioritise. Students experience significantly different levels of support depending on where they study. Access to services, staff capability, pathways to more support and crisis response vary between institutions.

This has already been recognised in parliamentary debate as a postcode lottery, reflecting growing concern about inconsistency in student safeguarding across the sector.

Current initiatives

Existing frameworks have done good work in reshaping thinking away from seeing mental health as the responsibility of counselling services alone. They instead emphasise that the promotion of mental health sits across all aspects of university life. This includes teaching, accommodation and campus culture.

The University Mental Health Charter is one of the strongest whole-university models. It provides a clear structure for action across learning, support and the wider student environment. Institutions can also choose to pursue the Charter Award. This introduces external assessment and scrutiny, requiring universities to evidence progress rather than simply state commitments.

Not all universities are signed up. A framework that institutions can opt out of cannot operate as a sector-wide safeguard.

Another framework, Stepchange, has had substantial influence in shaping how the sector understands mental health. Produced by sector body Universities UK, it provides guidance on issues such as prevention and institutional responsibility.

However, while it is straightforward for universities to endorse Stepchange principles, their implementation of the guidance may be inconsistent. Even if mental health is prioritised at a senior level, the responsibility for implementing this may remain fragmented across the institution. A university’s ambitions to create a mentally healthy environment may sit alongside unchanged academic pressures and assessment demands on students.

Alongside these flagship frameworks, suicide prevention guidance and NHS-university partnerships have enhanced how universities approach student wellbeing.

Staff training and more wellbeing-focused approaches to teaching have also helped universities take a more preventative approach to student support.

None of these developments, however, establishes a minimum standard across the sector. Adoption remains partial and implementation is uneven.

The result is predictable inconsistency. This is reflected in wider evidence on variation in student mental health support.

Frameworks as a starting point

Frameworks have provided an essential starting point. They have helped reposition mental health as a matter of institutional design, rather than something for people to manage alone. This has encouraged a move towards prevention rather than crisis response.

But it’s likely that frameworks tend to have the greatest impact in institutions that already have strong leadership and sufficient resources. Wider evidence already points to significant variation in mental health provision and support arrangements across higher education. Frameworks can be more difficult to implement consistently where financial constraints, workforce pressures or competing priorities are at play. This means that improvements occur in pockets, rather than across the sector.

A decade on, the context has shifted. Mental health pressures are increasing. Concern about student safety and serious harm remains high. Together, these pressures require greater consistency than voluntary opt-ins can deliver.

After years of frameworks and research, higher education already knows what good safeguarding and wellbeing practice looks like. The next phase is to translate that into minimum expectations, so students and staff at all universities can expect a certain level of support. Clearer expectations and mechanisms that reduce variation between institutions are required.

These mechanisms could include new regulatory requirements or conditions that must be met to receive funding. Another option is requiring universities to meet clearer safeguarding standards in order to operate as registered higher education providers. In England, the Office for Students already has powers to set and enforce the conditions universities must meet to operate. Evidence of good practice on mental health could be added to this.

In Wales, the tertiary education regulator Medr has already gone further. From 1 August 2026, it will introduce a regulatory condition on staff and learner welfare. This requires providers to have effective arrangements to support and promote welfare. They must provide evidence of compliance through Medr’s ongoing monitoring arrangements.

Alongside this, a Common Mental Health Framework is being developed in response to Welsh Government strategic priorities. Funded sector task groups support consistency across the higher education sector.

The regulatory condition supplies the enforceable element. The framework and funded projects support implementation. Together, this moves beyond optional guidance towards a more consistent and enforceable baseline.

The significance of the Welsh approach lies in how these different mechanisms work together. Good safeguarding practice and high wellbeing standards should not depend on which university a student happens to attend.

This is not simply a question of guidance, but of standards. When risks to safety are clear, systems tend to move beyond optional guidance and put in place clearer expectations, oversight and accountability. Higher education is moving in that direction, but remains some distance away.

Emma Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.