Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2019
I will cover some of the points that Mr Rennie made earlier.
As of October, more than 320 full-time equivalent mental health workers have been recruited and we are on target, with our partners, to recruit all 800. It is important that the Government discusses its policies with partners and it is appropriate that those 800 recruits are in the places where they will make a difference to people.
We are heavily committed to a range of early intervention and preventative services for young people. In partnership with our colleagues in local government, we are investing in school counselling in all secondary schools and expanding the availability of school nurses. We are also investing in counselling across our colleges and universities. The Labour Party supported that but, when it came to the money, it voted against the funding for those provisions.
Through the work of the children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing programme, which is jointly chaired with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, we are implementing some of the key recommendations from the Coia task force, the youth commission on mental health and the SAMH audit of rejected referrals. The programme board will oversee the emergence of new community mental health and wellbeing services and support across Scotland. It will also oversee the development of a new crisis service for young people in the year ahead.
The distress brief intervention pilot programme recently won the care for mental health award at the Scottish health awards in recognition of an innovative approach that is providing an “ask once, get help fast” early intervention for people who present in distress and do not need emergency medical treatment.