Hansard

It is a privilege to participate in today’s debate. I am in no doubt that, as others have reflected, suicide will have touched all our lives in many ways, which makes it difficult to talk about, but we must talk, listen and act.

I will always carry with me my experience as a social worker and mental health officer and, in particular, the first time that I made what was then known as a section 18 application to the sheriff court, under the old Mental Health (Scotland) Act 1984, to detain in hospital a young woman against her will. I made the case to the court that she needed to be in hospital to receive treatment and care because she would otherwise refuse to reduce the risk of harm to herself. A few months later she took her own life.

Was that the right decision, the wrong decision or the least wrong decision? We all need to have the courage to review and to learn from all suicides. I suggest that that includes those cases where people have attempted to take their lives, and I am pleased to see that case reviews feature prominently in the suicide prevention action plan.

I remember my old boss telling me that mental illness, like physical illness, can sometimes, tragically, be terminal. Although my old boss was not wrong, we must proceed with a steely determination that suicide is preventable and that no death by suicide is acceptable or inevitable.

I pay tribute to front-line staff who have to make very difficult decisions and judgment calls. I am sure that the minister understands that well, given that her front-line experience is more enduring and recent than mine. It is, of course, the efforts of staff in the voluntary and public service sectors, and those of carers, that have led to a 20 per cent decrease in the suicide rate in the past 15 years, although male suicide has, as we have heard, increased consecutively over each of the past three years.

As Samaritans does, I welcome the commitment to reduce the suicide rate by a further 20 per cent by 2022, although I struggle with the concept of a target when every life matters. We know that the greater ambition is to achieve transformational change, and given that Scotland has the highest suicide rate in Great Britain, it is—make no mistake—transformational change that is required. The suicide prevention action plan makes it crystal clear that that must be a national priority.

None of what is sought can be achieved without the reform of services. SAMH makes an interesting point about why the responsibility for local prevention plans should sit with a reformed public health service. Inclusion Scotland points to the importance of community planning partnerships, and the minister said that tackling the issue is not just a matter for health services. Along with other members, I warmly welcome the additional investment in resources and in increasing the mental health workforce, which represents a substantial commitment by anyone’s standards. We know that it is not possible to deliver the right service to the right person at the right time without staff and investment.

However, it takes far more than inputs to deliver a person-centred, flexible and responsive service that is built on lived experience. I have lost count of the number of people I have worked with as a social worker or a constituency MSP who have been turned away because they did not fit the criteria or the diagnosis, despite the fact that they or their families had reached out for help because they knew instinctively that something was wrong. Preventative services do not turn folk away because, as we know, the consequences can be catastrophic. Suicide prevention must be everyone’s business.

It is difficult to untangle the roles of universal statutory services, to align them with more specialist support or the growing community-based support that exists and to shift the balance towards more preventative measures, all of which must be done in the context of growing demand. However, small commonsense changes can sometimes make a huge difference. Last week, I visited the Scottish War Blinded centre in Linburn in my constituency. The support that it provides to veterans is life changing and, on occasion, life saving. The good news is that it wants to do more, and it is not asking the Government or any statutory service for more money. It can do more if we can find a way to identify earlier veterans who are registered as blind or visually impaired. I hope that the minister can help with that.

The biggest challenge that the minister faces is that of ensuring that the strategy and the additional investment have maximum impact on front-line services and communities. I know that stakeholders and Opposition members have asked questions about the role and authority of the national leadership group. Those questions will have to be answered, and the minister has begun to do that through today’s interventions.

I know that, ultimately, it is ministers who are accountable to Parliament. In this instance, we must all recognise that ministers’ responsibility is a heavy one. Along with other parliamentarians, I will have my tuppenceworth—I believe that it is called scrutiny and accountability—but I hope that I will not sound too much like a back-seat driver. The minister will always have my support, and judging by the tone and tenor of today’s debate, she will have the support of other members, too.