Meeting of the Parliament 17 May 2023
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will be brief. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate and I thank Jackie Baillie for bringing it to the chamber.
I must say that it is the cruellest irony that the minister in charge of the portfolio entreats people with mental ill health issues to come forward, only for them to join the longest queue in the national health service. The frustration that they, their families and the doctors and nurses around them feel is a mark of shame.
As we mark this mental health awareness week, it is important to acknowledge the scale of the challenge that I have just identified. Of course, it has been added to by the pandemic, which was a time of extraordinary trauma. However, a lot of that trauma already existed and was already not being addressed. The toll that that has taken has increased stress, depression, anxiety and—yes—waiting lists yet further.
We have heard about the focus of this year’s mental health awareness week, which is anxiety. We know that 58 per cent of adults in Scotland have in the past two weeks experienced anxiety that interfered with their daily lives. We are a nation on edge. When mental health symptoms are left untreated they can all too often become chronic and can lead to acute mental and physical health issues.
People need support and treatment, but they are just not getting it, with almost 30,000 Scots currently languishing on waiting lists for mental health treatments. As we have heard, in 2014, the SNP Government set a new national standard that 90 per cent of people who were referred to psychological therapy would start their treatment within 19 weeks. The target was set just as Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister of Scotland. It is a dreadful indictment of her time in office that that standard has never been met—not once in the nine years that she sat in Bute house. Two of the three worst years were recorded while Humza Yousaf was Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.
Mental health nursing staff play a key role in delivery of services. It is troubling that we are facing such a significant staff shortage, with more than 700 vacant posts. There is also a shortfall in nursing students. It is no wonder that services are struggling to meet demand.
It is unsurprising that the strain that staff are under is affecting their wellbeing. More than 70 per cent of members of the Royal College of Nursing have reported working more than their contracted hours at least once a week, while 60 per cent said that they were under far too much pressure at work. The NHS is buckling. Those figures should provide a wake-up call to the Administration. It is completely and utterly disappointing that the SNP-Green Government has cut the mental health budget in real terms by a staggering £50 million since last November. That is outrageous.
In 2021, Parliament voted, through agreement to a motion in my name, to declare a mental health crisis. Only two years on, the situation is even worse. The Government is not only sticking its head in the sand, but is actively making the situation worse through cuts to mental health services. As with so many other issues, it is abundantly clear that this continuity Government is living up to its name, with its abject failure to improve things for the people whom we are sent here to serve. It lacks the will, the determination and the imagination that are necessary in order to turn the situation around.
Humza Yousaf’s NHS recovery plan committed to clearing waiting lists in CAMHS and psychological therapies by March 2023, but it is now May, and we are nowhere. The First Minister and his Government are nowhere. People are stuck on waiting lists and are crying out for something to change. They need new hope now, more than ever.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats in Government would replace and increase funding for mental health services. We would reduce waiting times and roll out mental health professionals to work alongside GPs, police officers and in accident and emergency departments. We would establish a single point of contact for those who are on CAMHS waiting lists so that our young people will no longer be forced to tell their stories over and over again. We have to act, and we have to act now.
16:22