Meeting of the Parliament 12 January 2022
Happy new year to you, Presiding Officer, and all in the chamber. I welcome the opportunity to open the debate on mental health and wellbeing in primary care services. Mental ill health is one of the major public health challenges in Scotland, and we know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on mental health and wellbeing across Scotland, particularly for our children and young people.
We have all been affected in different ways, and we know that, for too many people, the impact on their mental health will have been exacerbated by existing inequalities. Approximately one third of all general practitioner consultations now have a mental health component, but the increasing range and complexity of mental health presentations means that they do not all fit existing pathways of care. We need to have in place the right capacity and capability to provide the necessary assessment, care and support in primary care settings. That is essential to ensure that people get the support that they need, when they need it.
Last year, we published our mental health transition and recovery plan, which sets out how we intend to support mental health through the pandemic. We have further built on those commitments through the national health service recovery plan and our programme for government. Our work focuses just as much on supporting and creating the conditions for everyone to have good mental wellbeing as it does on transforming our mental health services.
Our ambition is supported by our £120 million mental health recovery and renewal fund, which is the single largest investment in mental health in the history of devolution. The Scottish budget, which was published on 9 December 2021, continues the record levels of investment, with direct funding for mental health in 2022-23 of more than £290 million. That is a 6 per cent increase on this year and a 139 per cent increase on 2020-21. By the end of this parliamentary session, we will have increased direct mental health funding by 25 per cent and ensured that 10 per cent of all front-line NHS spend goes to mental health, with 1 per cent directed specifically to children and young people’s services.