Hansard

It gives me great pride to open for the Liberal Democrats this afternoon. I will take a moment to welcome Clare Haughey to the ministerial office that she now holds. Clare and I came to the Parliament at the same time and we served on the Health and Sport Committee together. I was always struck by the expertise that she brought from her experience as a community psychiatric nurse. I welcome her to her new role and I wish her good luck.

On the morning that the new suicide prevention action plan was published, I surprised Gary Robertson on “Good Morning Scotland” by telling him that I welcomed the plan whole-heartedly and that I was delighted to see it. I think that he was expecting more fisticuffs from me. Frankly, not a month had gone by when I had not called for the strategy to be forthcoming, because we waited a total of 16 months from the expiry of the previous strategy. All told, 1,000 of our fellow Scots will have died in that intervening period. I ascribe no blame for that, but it is really good to see this strategy finally in place and to see the level of support that it has garnered from the rest of the sector—a far cry from the initial reaction to the original draft, so I am grateful for that as well.

Like most people in the chamber, I have a visceral connection to this issue—at a constituency level, where this is a human tragedy that is visited on the north shore of my constituency every single week; in my personal experience of taking a suicidal relative to a psychiatric ward; and in the trauma that I still experience after having been a first responder to a man who took his own life and died on the pavement beside me in our nation’s capital. Therefore, I do not doubt the sincerity of anybody in this chamber or the spirit in which they approach this debate.

Our response should be built around our understanding of the failures of our previous systems. I do not think that we can find a more shocking example than the case of David Ramsay. We all know that, in October 2016, at 50 years old, David was turned away twice from the Carseview centre in Dundee, despite suicidal tendencies and the strong wishes of his family and his general practitioner for the centre to see him. He was not just turned away; he was told that his problems had been nipped in the bud and that he should pull himself together and go for a walk, yet the very next week, David sadly took his own life. If there is a silver lining to that tragedy, it is the formidable work of his niece, Gilly Murray, who has taken up the campaign around suicide prevention. She is watching today and I thank her for her efforts.

Although that example is extreme, David’s case has many commonalities with other people who have experienced suicidal ideation. He was a man; we know that suicide in Scotland is increasingly gendered, with 75 per cent of suicides occurring among men and suicide being the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50. A success story of the work that this and previous Scottish Governments have done is the huge reduction among women, which is at a low level that we have not seen in decades. However, the uptick in male suicides keeps Scotland’s suicide levels stubbornly resistant to reduction.

We need to look at the offer that we give to men. The voluntary sector has great examples, such as men’s sheds and community support work. However, although we have become good at getting men to talk openly about their mental health, the cruel irony is that, when they come forward and admit that they have a problem, there is a gaping void in the service provision that is offered to them. Similar to David’s case, many patients struggle with continuity of care. The Health and Sport Committee has compelling private evidence from families who have been affected and from people who have tried to take their lives, who all said the same thing: they had to tell their life story repeatedly to professionals, which is retraumatising. We would not expect to have five different cancer surgeons, so why do we expect people to make do with five different duty psychiatrists or counsellors?

I will talk now about the substance of the Liberal Democrat amendment. Talking therapies are vital. Although technology has its place, there has been criticism of online self-help equipment, such as the beating the blues website. The issue is not just about introducing psychiatrists; we can give people access to talking therapies by training the people who are around them. Any individual who works with people who are more likely to be at risk of suicide should have that training at their disposal.

Advances have been made by the Government in the field of mental health in the past couple of weeks, particularly in the programme for government. I welcome the level of investment, which is absolutely needed. We also need to grapple with the reality that, if we fast track people into beds that are not staffed properly, we will only compound the problems further. A rejected referral can do untold damage to people who thought that they were getting help at the end of the tunnel.

I welcome Clare’s appointment as a minister. She will bring much-needed expertise to this issue and, on that basis, she is assured of our support in the vote tonight.

I move amendment S5M-13847.2, to insert at end:

“; acknowledges the characteristics and factors known to contribute to raised suicide risk, and believes that work to identify actions to target risk groups is essential; understands that the Health and Sport Committee recently heard from people affected by suicide and that one of the consistent themes was the lack of access to talking therapies; notes the ISD Scotland statistics showing that one-in-four adults did not start treatment for psychological therapies within 18 weeks during the quarter ending June 2018; recognises that early access to services, support and treatment, and continuity of care can be important factors in preventing deaths by suicide, and urges the Scottish Government to secure substantial progress in these areas.”