Published by HACT, July 2020

Breathing Space is a mental health service run by Orbit. It was established in April 2017, with the purpose of supporting Orbit customers to achieve positive improvements in their mental health. The service arose from Orbit’s increasing awareness of the poor mental health of many customers, including many in general needs properties.

Orbit commissioned HACT to carry out an independent evaluation of the Breathing Space service in April 2019. The evaluation framework is designed to provide an independent assessment of how Breathing Space has been delivered in practice, its performance during the reporting period, and learning that can be applied to future tendering and service design to optimise impact.