Meeting of the Parliament 12 January 2022
The Scottish Greens believe that everyone who needs mental health support should have quick and easy access to it. To ensure that it has parity with physical health, we must place mental health at the heart of our healthcare system, and part of that is ensuring that people can get support and treatment when they need it.
Too many people are waiting too long for treatment. The numbers of referrals to psychological therapies are now back to pre-pandemic levels, and services are struggling to meet demand. If we are committed to prevention and early intervention, we need to make it as easy as possible for people to access mental health support. We need to provide an alternative to acute treatment, so that people not only receive the most appropriate support but do not sit on a waiting list while their mental health worsens.
We know that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on mental health. People have struggled financially, they have lost loved ones and they have been isolated while in lockdown or shielding. We should not underestimate the effect of that collective trauma, which will continue to take its toll for many years to come.
For most people, making an appointment with their GP is the first step towards getting help for mental health problems. Like Monica Lennon, I am concerned with the issues that face NHS Lanarkshire at the moment. According to the Royal College of General Practitioners, approximately one third of all consultations in GP practices have a mental health component. General practice teams have already been providing mental health support to a large portion of the population and, as health professionals embedded within the community, they are well placed to do so, particularly to individuals who might not require acute or specialist treatment. According to a recent RCGP Scotland survey, 94 per cent of GPs who responded agreed that, since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of patients who present with mental health problems has increased.
The GP workforce is under pressure like never before, and that is impacting GPs’ ability to help patients who seek mental health support. A report that was produced by SAMH found that, although there have been very positive examples of participants receiving support from GPs, the pressures of the pandemic have negatively affected some people’s experiences of accessing mental health support, with many describing difficulty in accessing appointments, due to high demand.
We cannot leave people struggling without the help that they need, but neither can we expect existing services to meet the surge in demand. We need to expand the number of mental health professionals who work within communities. That is why the Scottish Greens and Scottish Government have committed to ensure that, by the end of this parliamentary session, every GP practice will have a link worker and access to an assigned, community-based mental health clinician. That will help to ensure that patients can access mental health support as quickly as possible and that they see the most appropriate person.
If treatment is truly to be person centred, we also need a diverse mix of mental health professionals in primary care, so that people can see the right person at the right time, whether that is for cognitive behavioural therapy or talking therapies. That will, in turn, improve the support that is provided to people who seek help for their mental health and reduce GPs’ workload.
Increasing the number of community link workers in general practice will—we hope—improve engagement with social prescribing, the mental health benefits of which are well known. In Lanarkshire, the well-connected social prescribing programme has been shown to help people by improving self-confidence and self-esteem, reducing low mood and feelings of stress, and helping people to develop positive ways of coping with the challenges of life, among other benefits.
In a recent scheme, which was run over five months, GPs at five practices in Edinburgh prescribed nature as part of a collaboration between RSPB Scotland and Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation. The scheme aimed to establish the effectiveness of using nature as a health tool in an urban setting, with a view to rolling it out to other practices. Given that many peer support groups were cancelled because they were not able to meet in person during lockdown, outdoor social prescribing must be in the mix going forward.
Great work is being done on social prescribing, and the benefits are being felt. However, we know that clinicians might struggle to find the time to engage with social prescribing and to develop relationships with local organisations. Community link workers will be vital in that regard, as they are able to spend extended time with patients. Link workers can build relationships of trust and signpost patients to appropriate, local, non-NHS services. However, due to the pressures of the pandemic, many non-NHS organisations might be providing limited or reduced support, so it is essential that we support those organisations during their recovery from the pandemic, and ensure that there is equal access to social prescribing across the country.
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