Meeting of the Parliament 02 April 2014
I welcome the opportunity to speak in this afternoon's debate on what is a vital issue for tens of thousands of people across Scotland. In last year’s debate on the Scottish Government’s mental health strategy, I said that the strategy was very much a work in progress, so it is helpful for Parliament to take a further look at progress since then and at what still needs to be done.
As Neil Findlay pointed out, mental health is one of the biggest public health challenges that face Scotland and Europe as a whole. Back in 2005, the World Health Organization predicted that by 2030 depression will be the second-biggest health burden, which is why successive Scottish Administrations and the Parliament have worked together to make mental health a priority, and why significant efforts are being made to deliver the commitments in the current mental health strategy.
Although faster access to appropriate care and support for people who suffer from mental ill health is a fundamental challenge, we should remember that Scotland remains the only country in the world to have introduced a waiting time target for access to psychological therapies. From this December, that target will be no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, and data from last December suggest that about 81.6 per cent of people are already seen within that timescale. For specialist child and adolescent mental health services, the Government has set a 26-week target, which will reduce to 18 weeks by December. As of December last year, 82.5 per cent of the children and young people who were referred were seen within 18 weeks. Our NHS boards are making progress in meeting the target, which is, as the minister has made clear, challenging and is intended to drive improvement in the system.
We know, however, that there is still much more to do and that this is very much work in progress. The Government does not underestimate the challenge that we face. However, the targets are only part of the picture. In addition to improving access to, and the quality of, psychological services, health boards need to offer services that meet the full range of people's needs, including—if they are right for the patient—lower-intensity interventions that might prevent their ever needing higher-intensity services at all.
In our last debate on the mental health strategy, I highlighted a social prescribing project in the Stewartry that has been joint-funded by NHS Dumfries and Galloway and Dumfries and Galloway Council, and which involves the third sector and two general practices, in Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie. The results of the project, the aim of which is to reduce prescribing of anti-depressants through other forms of therapeutic provision, are being evaluated, but the fact is that we need a mixture of such provision in order to deliver the same person-centred approach to mental health care that we require in other areas of health care.
I welcome the Government’s continuing commitment to tackling the stigma that is, I am sad to say, still associated with mental illness and mental health problems, with the re-funded “see me” national programme investing, with Comic Relief, £4.5 million over three years. In that regard, SAMH, the Mental Health Foundation and many other organisations are to be commended for the support that they provide to Scots who live with mental health problems.
There has been very little time to cover such a broad and complex policy area, so in conclusion I say that the Government remains committed to providing high-quality mental health services, to improving access to those services and to improving their scope and breadth, to tackling the stigma that has dogged mental ill health for too long, and to addressing the wider issues of social policy and deprivation, which are undoubtedly important factors in the social context of mental health.
Publication later this year of the 10-years-on follow-up to the Grant report to review the state of mental health services in Scotland will be crucial in giving us the national picture from the early years to later life, in showing variations, and in identifying the gaps and challenges that persist. I look forward very much to seeing that report.
I support the minister’s amendment.
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