Whenever I try and do a skip by mashing escape then enter etc (or whatever the level calls for) it just brings me back to the main screen. Any time I press escape, no matter what level.

Am I doing something wrong or is it patched?

Are you attempting the skips on a fresh file? If you're not clearing your progress by using the 'restart.bat' option in the menu then the game won't play any cutscenes, so there's just nothing to skip

Ah right I was just confused because in Bullets WR run he starts it from Kick on Level select but is still mashing. Why is he mashing if there's nothing to skip? Is it because he already used restart.bat before selecting it on level select?

Also on subway he is mashing to get past the bit where you're stuck in the level after shooting the last dude but if I mash there it just brings me back to the main screen so I must be getting something mixed up here :P

Cheers for the reply I appreciate your help

It's kinda hard to say what's going wrong without having a video to see what you're actually doing. Best I can do is redirect you here -> https://www.speedrun.com/superhot/guide/oe7v0 and just seeing if your inputs are lining up with what you should be doing