Meeting of the Parliament 01 April 2025
I thank my good friend Daniel Johnson for bringing the debate to light.
Reflecting ahead of it, I was conscious of the great range of my work as an MSP that is considered in the debate and the motion. There are issues relating to casework, constituents seeking diagnosis and medication, facilities, delayed discharge and education. The subject cuts across many issues, as many of the speeches that we have heard so far have made clear.
However, others have referenced the situation in NHS Tayside, and I want to concentrate my remarks on that. The NHS Tayside board papers from February 2025 refer to
“A significant increase in referral rates for Neurodevelopment (ND) assessments and a reduction in specialist ND staff”
and declare that
“The pathway and waiting list is extensive and unmanageable, with no alternative pathway for these children and young people.”
In reaction to that, the health board has agreed that only those children and young people with comorbid mental health difficulty will be accepted by CAMHS, which is effectively a closure of the waiting list. When the situation was presented to MSPs, the health board referenced the 400 per cent increase in the number of referrals for neurodevelopmental challenges on the waiting list. My colleague Brian Whittle told me this afternoon that, in his area, the percentage increase has been far higher. We are seeing the same pattern across the country, as I think has been acknowledged.
It is fair to say that members in the Tayside region believed that the situation was not sustainable and that something had to change. At the time, questions were rightly asked about the system that would be put in its place, the amount of clinical input that would be involved in a team-around-the-child approach, and the availability of medication through diagnosis. However, those questions remain unanswered. We also heard the statistic that those on the CAMHS waiting list in Tayside could be waiting 13 to 14 years for treatment.
At First Minister’s question time last week, the First Minister spoke of his delight that, in the period from October to December 2024, 90 per cent of young people referred to CAMHS were seen within 18 weeks. I ask the minister in closing to say how on earth those two things can be true at the same time. It amounts to a statistical contortion. People in Tayside are rightly asking whether the closure of a waiting list is the means by which the waiting list target is being met. That would be doing everybody in the process a disservice, and we must get to the bottom of what is happening. It was right that, in the same question time session, the First Minister expressed concern about the communication around the issue, but substantive questions remain.
This afternoon, I met autism campaigners, who were asked about the issues that they wanted to have raised in the debate. The first voice that chimed mentioned that we still lock up many people with autism across Scotland. Last Friday, I visited a constituent whom I have been representing for years and who is incarcerated in the learning disability unit at Carseview in Dundee. After a delayed discharge of more than five years, he is still waiting in a situation that is deeply inappropriate for his needs.
I also recently visited the locked wards of Strathmartine hospital, which has been condemned by the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland. In its report, which I have previously mentioned in the chamber, it highlights the hospital’s Dickensian conditions, including rats falling from the roof, infestations in the walls and other conditions that are entirely unacceptable. It is absolutely clear that there is much work to do in this area, and the minister has an awful lot of questions to answer.
17:57