Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 February 2021
As other members have acknowledged, this has been a very worthwhile debate, with valuable contributions across the chamber.
At the start of the debate, Alex Cole-Hamilton reminded us that the motion asks only that Parliament accept the simple but important fact that
“there is a mental health crisis in Scotland.”
Those who are involved in the sector—I pay tribute to each and every one of them—recognise that, and those who are in need of support, whose numbers grow by the hour, certainly recognise it. Even the Scottish Government, given the welcome and surely coincidental funding announcement that was made by Kate Forbes yesterday, appears, at least implicitly, to recognise it. So why cannot ministers bring themselves to acknowledge the crisis for what it is? How can it possibly serve the interests of those who are desperately in need of support or those who are trying their best to provide support that ministers stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the crisis? For what reason is the Government so determined to avoid acknowledging the crisis that it seeks to airbrush it out of the motion, as it did when the Parliament debated a similar motion 15 months ago? In that debate, we heard from MSPs across the chamber painful testimony of the experiences endured by their constituents. We have heard the same again today.
Alex Cole-Hamilton talked about the effects of isolation, and Donald Cameron and David Stewart drew attention to the rising suicide rate. Mary Fee rightly warned that, as bad as things have got in recent months, we are far from seeing the worst of it. Alison Johnstone and Pauline McNeill focused on the particular stresses in relation to CAMHS. Stuart McMillan talked about the continuing issue of stigma, and Emma Harper highlighted the rural dimension to the issue, which was welcome.
However, the crisis in mental health predates the pandemic. In March last year, children’s mental health waiting times reached record highs. Some adults were waiting two years for treatment. Indeed, the Government’s own waiting times target has not been met since it was introduced, in 2014. Services are overwhelmed and we know that our police are far too often left to pick up the pieces, as Edward Mountain said. Officers not only attend individuals in distress; they can be asked to spend entire shifts accompanying those who are in crisis to safe emergency treatments through A and E. That is not sensible or safe. There should be help on hand from trained professionals for anyone who needs it.
As everyone has acknowledged this afternoon, all those problems have been pushed to the extreme over the past year. Last week, my colleague Beatrice Wishart revealed that research had found that children and young people in Shetland have waited, collectively, 1,300 days beyond the 18-week target in the year so far. That is a 4,500 per cent increase compared with the previous year. Those are not just numbers; they are evidence of people having taken the difficult step of reaching out only to find that the support that they need is not there.
That is not the fault of the staff, who are stretched to their limit and doing their best. Neither does it diminish the additional resource that ministers have committed—which is still not enough, although it is considerably more than it would have been had we simply accepted the Government’s previous arguments that it was doing all that it could. That evidence is, though, an argument for saying that, as we begin the process of rebuilding from the pandemic, we must learn from past mistakes.
That will require honesty about the scale of the challenge that we face and about the extent of the crisis that exists. Clare Haughey argued that nothing is to be gained by describing what is happening in mental health as a crisis. Why, then, has the Scottish Government accepted that we face a climate and nature crisis? Why, after 14 years of ministers sticking their heads in the sand while pointing the finger at Westminster, has the First Minister finally accepted that we face a drugs death crisis in Scotland?
In the same way, we now need the Scottish Government to accept the evidence and acknowledge that we face a mental health crisis. We need the treatment of mental and physical ill health to be put on the same statutory footing. We need a third sector that is fully engaged and involved in the delivery of joined-up services. We need appropriate expertise to be available when and where it is needed, no matter where in the country someone lives. We need resources beyond what the finance secretary has announced, welcome though those are. Finally, we need strategies on mental health and suicide prevention to be updated in a timely fashion and informed by the expertise of those who work in the sector and those with lived experience. We need all of that and more, but we also need the Scottish Government to face the fact that Scotland has a mental health crisis.
Given what we have heard today, what we know from our constituencies and regions, and what we hear consistently from experts and those who are desperate for help, more of the same simply is not good enough. Parliament passed up an opportunity to declare a mental health crisis 15 months ago. To do so again, in the face of all the evidence, would be negligent in the extreme. I urge Parliament to support the motion in Alex Cole-Hamilton’s name.