Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2019
I would like to make some progress, please.
Despite the higher profile of mental health, it is still not discussed as much as, and treated on a par with, physical health.
The Liberal Democrat motion raises many important points, simply because there are so many concerns around mental health across the board. It is right to say that there is a mental health crisis, although our colleagues on the Government benches might not agree with that. Although not all the causes may lie with the Scottish Government, it is only right that it should bear the ultimate responsibility for that crisis. Waiting times for CAMHS, underinvestment in services, a lack of staff and a scaling back of commitments are just some of the major issues, as the motion highlights, and more should be done to invest in mental health to create a parity between physical and mental health.
The most recent release of statistics on child and adolescent mental health services shows that three in 10 children and young people are not being seen within the 18-week target. In fact, the waiting time target has not been met during the First Minister’s time in office. In 2018-19, more than 5,000 children and young people waited longer than 18 weeks to access services and support, and a further 7,000 were rejected for referrals to CAMHS, with little by way of alternatives or treatment options being available to those who were rejected.
Those children and young people are being let down now, and the consequences could follow them well into adulthood. The transition from CAMHS to adult services is a quagmire to navigate for many people, which adds to their stress and furthers the trauma, not only for the young person but for the family. That is why Scottish Labour lodged its amendment, which has a special focus on children and young people.
The First Minister’s announcement in 2018 that every school would have a mental health counsellor was welcomed by Scottish Labour, and it remains welcome today. Sadly, however, as Annie Wells highlighted, the pace of implementation means that hundreds of schoolchildren are missing out now on vital access to a school counsellor. There has been a reannouncement of that commitment 14 months after it was made and just days before this debate. Access to a school counsellor who can provide the right level of support at a very early stage has the potential to fundamentally change a young person’s long-term mental health and wellbeing. Surely that is the kind of transformational change that we all want to see.
Returning to the motion, we agree that serious questions need to be answered on mental health worker recruitment. The Scottish Government promised an extra 800 mental health staff by March 2022 in A and E, GP settings, prisons and custody suites. The period for delivering on that is now 50 per cent of the way through, but only 40 per cent of the staff promised are in place. In fact, the promise has been watered down, because a third of the new staff delivered are in “other settings”, rather than in the places where the original commitment guaranteed they would be.
Prisons, in particular, need access to more mental health staff, because we know that the prison population has greater levels of poor mental health. Given my long-standing work on supporting prisoners and their families, I find it disappointing that the announcement appears to have been watered down. Properly supporting offenders and their families is crucial if we are to break the cycle of reoffending—I have seen all too often the impact of failure to support offenders who have poor mental health. It is vital that the proper support and help are available to all offenders. More important, that support must be tailored to meet need.