Chamber and committees

We know that many carers experience mental, physical, employment and financial impacts as a result of their caring role. We must ensure adequate support for carers, particularly those most at risk of poorer health, to ensure their wellbeing and sustain them in their role.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan and the Workforce Action Plan were published jointly with COSLA in November 2023. Actions in the Delivery Plan cover a wide spectrum, from maintaining good mental wellbeing, to support in communities, to ensuring specialist services are available whenever needed.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan recognised the valuable role of carers and set out actions to improve carer awareness training for the workforce and access to wellbeing support for carers. Equality Impact Assessments have been published for both the Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan.

Our National Wellbeing Hub provides advice for unpaid carers, with information and resources to support carers to look after their mental health and wellbeing.

The National Specification for Psychological Therapies and Interventions was published in September 2023. It aims to improve the quality of the delivery of psychological therapies and interventions so that people accessing help, including unpaid carers, have positive experiences.

Support for carers is one of the aims of the recently published Core Mental Health Standards, which includes signposting to support and resources when needed. These standards were developed with the input of individuals with lived experience, including carers and set out clear expectations for what services will provide and to let individuals, their families and carers know what they can expect from a secondary mental health service. We want to support secondary mental health services which enable people to receive the right information, support, care, intervention, or service for their needs

Another key aim of the standards is that they are meaningful and measurable. National data sources will be used to monitor how well the standards are being met. Where areas for improvement are identified, support will be provided to local areas to ensure that safe and quality services are provided. The standards will also aim to ensure services are measuring key outcomes for patients, including carer experience.

Our National Discharge Without Delay Steering Group has representatives from every NHS Board and Health and Social Care Partnership in Scotland. The group leads on improvement and sharing best practice across Scotland on areas related to good hospital to community transfer or discharge planning. The group meets monthly and there is a standing agenda item on support for unpaid carers which has highlighted examples of good practice.

We have funded NHS Education for Scotland to develop three training modules for the health and social care workforce, to help them to identify, include and support unpaid carers which we expect to be launched in January 2024. This will include highlighting carers’ right to involvement in hospital discharge decisions.

We have also funded Healthcare Improvement Scotland to work to improve practice on carer involvement across health, with a focus on carer involvement in hospital discharge.

As part of this, in September 2023, we brought together Health and Social Care Partnership carer lead officers and Carer Centre Managers to focus on this issue and share good practice.

We recognise the significant contribution that Scotland’s unpaid carers make to our communities. It is very important that people who are caring for others know how to access carer support, and that professionals know how to direct people to support.

Under the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016, Local Authorities and Integration Authorities are responsible for supporting carers, according to their individual needs, and commission Third Sector organisations to provide much of that support on their behalf. This includes providing or signposting to counselling and other services that are available to them locally. Much of this vital support is delivered through local carer centres.

We are investing £88.4m per year in local carer support through local authority Carers Act funding.

Under the Carers (Scotland) Act, all adult and young carers have the right to a personalised plan to identify what is important to them, which may include counselling and emotional support, according to their individual circumstances. Future needs for bereavement support can be considered as part of the process and any eligible needs for support must be met.

Local authorities must also have a carer information and advice service, usually delivered via local carer centres, to help all adult and young carers access support in their area. This must include information and advice on counselling and bereavement support available to carers, not necessarily carer-specific services. In addition to information and advice services, many local carer centres provide their own counselling and support services which can include group/peer support and bereavement support.

The Scottish Government is investing £88.4m per year in local carer support through local authority Carers Act funding.

Statistics published on 5 September 2023 covering quarter ending June 2023 show that NHS Forth Valley, NHS Highland, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Orkney did not effectively eliminate their long waits (where 4% or fewer of all waits are over one year).

However, statistics published on 5 December 2023 covering quarter ending September 2023 show that NHS Forth Valley, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Orkney have now effectively eliminated their long waits (where 4% or fewer of all waits are over one year).

We continually monitor CAMHS waiting times performance and backlogs and are directing tailored support to those Boards with the longest waits, including NHS Highland, providing access to professional advice, ensuring they have robust improvement plans in place and monitoring their implementation.

We have commissioned all Boards to submit performance trajectories up to March 2024, including a timeline for clearing long waits. These will be updated annually and used to inform further targeted improvement work to ensure all Boards consistently meet the CAMHS waiting times standard.

As part of the process to develop the Scottish Government/COSLA Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, we undertook a literature review and engaged with stakeholders, people with lived experiences and the Equality and Human Rights Forum to gather evidence and better understand marginalised groups’ experiences of mental health. This included unpaid carers, and professional bodies, third sector and equalities organisations representing their interests.

This evidence has been published in the Scottish Government Mental Health Equality Evidence Report accompanying the Delivery Plan, with a specific section on carers at chapter 12. This evidence was invaluable in undertaking a robust Equality Impact Assessment and shaping the Strategy and subsequent Delivery and Workforce Action Plans.

Our refreshed Diabetes Improvement Plan outlines our commitment to further increase access to diabetes technologies to all who would benefit.

We would expect the prescribing clinician to discuss the most appropriate device for the individual and their circumstances. Where a mobile phone is not available, manufacturers provide receivers which are compatible with the devices.

Between 2016 and 2022, the Scottish Government invested £29.6 million of additional funding to support the increased provision of diabetes technologies, and we continue to work with stakeholders to ensure this is equitable across Scotland.

Responsibility for the recruitment of CAMHS staff lies with NHS Boards. In the NHS Recovery Plan 2021-2026 , the Scottish Government committed to provide sufficient funding for around 320 additional staff in CAMHS by 2026, with the potential to increase capacity for CAMHS cases by over 10,000. This commitment refers to Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) staff.

The Scottish Government continues to consider all avenues for securing a sustainable future for Ferguson Marine, including learning from relevant international examples.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone in Scotland whose first language is not English can contribute to Scotland’s future and the society they live in. Having support to learn English is key for many refugees and people seeking asylum, enabling them to participate in learning in schools, colleges and universities; engage within communities; and pursue their employment goals.

Through consultation on the future of adult learning between September 2019 and February 2020, the Scottish Government engaged with over 700 ESOL learners and committed to undertake a review of the impact of ‘Welcoming Our Learners: Scotland’s ESOL Strategy 2015-2020’ to produce recommendations on next steps for these specialisms within the context of the adult learning strategy.

On 5 December 2023, I announced an independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD) which includes ESOL learning. The Independent Review of CLD offers a timely opportunity to better understand how we can ensure that proposed changes to the education and skills system has a focus on the most marginalised learners. Given the ongoing work to reform the education sector, and the intention of the review to provide recommendations on how CLD can best fit within it, it makes sense to pause implementation of the strategies until such time as the future shape and strategic orientation of CLD is considered.