Hansard

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on delivering a healthier Scotland.

Although Scotland is, generally speaking, becoming healthier, deep-rooted health inequalities remain. Despite Scotland’s health improving in recent years, to our shame we have the widest health inequalities in western Europe. That will not be a surprise to returning members, because the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee reported in 2015 that

“despite many well-intended initiatives, none have made any significant difference. Indeed, although health is improving, it is doing so less rapidly than in other European countries and although the latest figures are a little more encouraging, health inequalities remain persistently wide.”

That is why this week organisations such as Voluntary Health Scotland are calling for a comprehensive Scottish Government strategy for tackling health inequalities.

Health inequalities are intrinsically tied to poverty and income inequality. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is absolutely right when it says that deep-rooted health concerns have to be addressed by improving social conditions, strengthening communities and empowering individuals to fulfil their human rights.

Tackling health inequalities requires an approach that looks beyond the NHS to examine inequalities across all parts of Government. I hope that there is consensus on that across the chamber. I am pleased that there is consensus among all political parties to treat mental health with parity of esteem, but warm words are not enough. The SNP Government knows that it must deliver.

Let us look at waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services and psychological therapies. Today’s figures represent an improvement, but on-going missed targets ultimately mean that too many vulnerable patients are being badly let down; as the mother of a nine-year-old daughter, I hope never to experience the fear and desperation that that causes families. I have listened to parents and young people in my region of Central Scotland who have shared a little of their horror with me as their loved ones wait and wait.

Members will recall that the now-retired Dr Richard Simpson MSP, a psychiatrist with more than 20 years’ experience, pointed out that the longer young people with mental health problems wait for treatment, the worse their conditions get. The waiting is not some sort of inconvenience; there is a genuine argument that it worsens their condition.

Figures obtained just the other week by the National Union of Students Scotland under freedom of information provisions show a 47 per cent increase in students trying to access mental health support services. NUS Scotland’s research reveals that university and college services are

“struggling to meet this demand”.

The commission on health inequalities revealed that whole communities have been at breaking point. In Kilwinning, for example, a sharp rise in young male suicides led to the community describing the situation as a crisis, yet the waiting time for a psychiatric appointment was 18 months in some cases. The local community, no longer able to stand by and watch young people die, took action. A local organisation hired a counsellor to treat some of the young people who were waiting for treatment.

Just last month, The Courier reported that in Dundee there has been a rise in the number of people of all ages taking their lives. Horrified by the alarming regularity of incidents, campaigners chose to speak out and call for improvements to be made to mental health care across Tayside and Scotland as a whole. The ex-assistant chief constable of Tayside Police, Angela Wilson, who served on the beat in Tayside and dealt with suicide as part of her role, argues strongly that society and the Government must treat mental and physical health as equals. She said that the statistics show that

“they don’t put as much money into mental health issues, particularly young people’s mental health ... There’s not enough money gone into research and there’s certainly not enough money gone into treatment.”

Sophie Pilgrim, who heads the children’s charity Kindred Advocacy, said:

“There are very long waiting times for diagnosis so for example one in ten children have a condition which has a diagnostic label but there’s long delays in getting that information and if you don’t have a diagnosis you can’t get the right treatment for that condition.”

The number of patients, especially children, who are waiting longer for mental health treatment than they should have to is simply unacceptable.

Like the cabinet secretary, I pay tribute to our dedicated NHS staff. Our health professionals are working as hard as they can, but understaffing and under-resourcing is putting their own mental health at risk. We need more mental health professionals throughout our health service, from primary care settings to A and E.