Meeting of the Parliament 13 June 2018
I welcome this important debate on mental health, and I thank the Liberal Democrats for using their debating time to have it.
The motion rightly refers to the disappointment that many people who work in the mental health and voluntary sectors felt when the Scottish Government’s new mental health strategy was published in late March 2017. At the time, I called the strategy “a missed opportunity” that would not deliver the transformative change in mental health services that we all want. Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that I have not seen enough additional action from the Scottish Government since March 2017 to change my view.
Despite the strategy and the rhetoric that we have heard from ministers, the sad fact is that mental health services are still failing too many people. Waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services are a particular concern, as members from around the chamber have said today. The latest CAMHS data, which was published by Information Services Division Scotland last week, indicates that, during the previous quarter, only about 70 per cent of patients were seen within the 18-week target. That is a significant fall from the 84 per cent that was recorded this time last year, and it is a massive 20 per cent below the Government’s target.
NHS Lothian met the target in only 65 per cent of cases, which means that many vulnerable young people in my region are currently waiting far too long just to start treatment, which places even greater pressure on their families. Everyone knows that swift and effective support to tackle mental health challenges in childhood is essential in order to prevent mental ill health worsening and to reduce the risk of it resurfacing in adulthood, so the delays are unacceptable. They could prove to be devastating for individuals and families.
I hope that today’s debate focuses the minister’s attention on the need to take genuine and decisive action to turn things around. Annie Wells’s amendment correctly identifies the importance of increasing mental health support in schools and of early intervention. They are both vital, and I continue to believe that we need to do far more to offer young people with mental health challenges—and people of any age who go to their GP with mild to moderate depression or anxiety—social prescribing options with local groups and voluntary sector organisations, as well as access to counselling and talking therapies.
Under the Scottish National Party, we are building a crisis in mental health services in Scotland. That is unsustainable and it will continue to fail families around Scotland. The Scottish Government needs to prioritise social prescribing and support for local groups that can provide support to people when they need it. If the Scottish Government’s mental health strategy target of delivering an “Ask once, get help fast” approach to mental health is to be achievable, we need to make sure that that change happens. It is absolutely no use for families to ask once and be told to wait a year before they get any help.
The Government also needs to understand that other parts of our NHS are not delivering for patients, which is impacting on mental health services. I am the co-convener of our Parliament’s cross-party group on chronic pain, and the mental distress and suicidal feelings of chronic pain patients who face delays of up to a year in accessing vital treatment is of increasing concern. At our last meeting, the CPG heard moving testimony from one chronic pain patient who had attempted suicide rather than face a year of being in pain before she could get repeat treatment. Ministers need to recognise the impact of long waiting times for chronic pain treatment and how it impacts on the wellbeing of many people.
I agree with the concerns that have been expressed by Alex Cole-Hamilton and other members about the new suicide strategy. Only yesterday, a representative of Samaritans in Scotland agreed at the Health and Sport Committee that
“We have gone from being ahead to being behind.”—[Official Report, Health and Sport Committee, 12 June 2018; c 5.]
He told us that the Scottish Government had undertaken no evaluation of the previous strategy, and ministers should understand that that needs to take place as soon as possible.
We simply cannot afford to be complacent when suicide is one of the biggest killers of men in Scotland, especially of men under 45, and when we know—we must always send out this message—that every suicide is preventable.
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