Meeting of the Parliament 13 June 2018
Consultant vacancy numbers are going up, not down. There has been a failure to plan adequately for the workforce, which is why we have had to launch our own workforce commission. We have seen a cut in the number of educational psychologist places under the current Government over the past four years, not an increase. We should have some more reality in this debate.
Last March, the Scottish Government promised an audit of cases where children who had been referred to child mental health services had been rejected and of why. Since we were promised that audit, more than 5,000 cases have been rejected. That is 5,000 young people. The First Minister told the chamber, and the minister repeated it today, that the audit report would be published by 30 June. Can the minister therefore give a commitment to the chamber today that that audit report will be published before Parliament goes into recess and that its publication will be accompanied by a ministerial statement in this Parliament?
On psychological services for adults, the number of patients waiting too long for help is also on the rise. In the first three months of 2018, almost 3,400 adults waited longer than the Government’s own target for treatment—400 more than last year. Again, progress is going backwards, not forwards. Real people are in need of help and are not getting it, sometimes with devastating consequences.
That is why we need a genuinely transformational approach. We need to ring fence mental health budgets to make sure that they go to the front line. We need to listen to the concerns of senior doctors and have a mental health counsellor in every school across the country. We need to go further by restoring the bursary for educational psychologists and we need to see the number of educational psychology training places, which have been cut over the past four years, going up.
Crisis mental health services are also in need of urgent support. Some patients cannot wait for days or weeks to see a GP, or wait for weeks or months to see a psychologist. For some people, that time difference is literally a matter of life or death. That is why we need a fundamental rethink of mental health services. Our patients and staff deserve better.
We must recognise that the challenges with mental health services go beyond NHS Tayside. The review in Tayside, therefore, has a national significance, so perhaps the time has come for a nationwide review—perhaps a commission—to look at service provision, funding, models of care, community support, access to crisis services and patient involvement. Let us be clear: a review, strategy or ministerial title, which is always so popular for this Government, cannot be a fig leaf for its failures and an excuse for it not to act. I urge Parliament to send a message to the Government today that the time to act is now.
I move amendment S5M-12706.2, to insert at end:
“; notes the results of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, which suggest that at least half of people in Scotland feel that poorer health is a result of an 'unjust society' and believes that inequality and poverty have a significant impact on mental health; believes that societal and economic reforms are needed to reduce many drivers of poor mental health; further believes that early intervention is vital if the country is to see a generational shift and that, as part of that, there should be access to a mental health counsellor in every school, and recognises that suicide prevention strategies should be implemented at a local level, with funding ring-fenced, and that any new framework on suicide prevention should have sufficient resources, workforce, governance and leadership.”
15:06Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.
- S5M-12706.2 Health Motion