Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to support improved cancer access performance across NHS Scotland. £2.85m funding was distributed to NHS boards in June 2017 using the Scottish Resource Allocation Formula.

There is variation and incompleteness in the recording of diagnoses in A&E. This means that it is not possible to produce accurate national reporting of trends in attendances due to psychiatric conditions. In 2016-17, around 3.8% of those attendances with a valid diagnosis code related to a psychiatric condition.

National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:

2014-15 - 4 patients

2015-16 – 3 patients

2016-17 – 2 patients

Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.

National Services Division (NSD) funds placements of children and young people with mental health disorders who require specialist care. The following figures are for patients with a mental health diagnosis including autism and learning disabilities who have been admitted for inpatient care. As these patients are categorised as requiring specialist care, this does not distinguish between forensic and non-forensic:

2014-15 - 4 patients

2015-16 – 3 patients

2016-17 – 2 patients

Information about placements arranged by individual NHS Boards or local authorities is not held centrally.

Scottish Government expects Health Boards and Integration Authorities to ensure adequate mental health care and treatment is available for their populations. This applies to community and hospital treatment. Generally these are provided as locally as possible within the Board / Authority area but there are exceptions where people are treated out of area. The reasons for out of area treatment are generally to allow access to highly specialist regional or national treatment tailored to specific individuals. For inpatients there are occasions where patients require admission out of area due to temporary bed unavailability but attempts are always made to minimise this.

Out-patient activity is reported by ISD. Inpatient activity is also subject to regular ISD reporting and an annual moment-in-time census. Health Boards wishing to use non NHS Scotland NHS beds access these through the National Services Division of NHS NSS who monitor these placements. Health Boards may also wish to use private non NHS facilities but they are not required to report this use on an on-going basis. The Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland is informed of all detained patients and detention certificates include information on the site of admission. Cross Border transfers of detained patients are subject to Ministerial approval.

Beyond this data collection Scottish Government does not intend making the recording of data by NHS Boards on where mental health patients are being treated a statutory requirement.

The Scottish Government has committed to recruiting an additional 250 Community Links Workers (CLWs) in practices in deprived areas with 40 in place by September 2017. The rollout will be phased until 2021. CLWs connect people to non-medical sources of support or resources in the community which are likely to help with their health problems. To ensure CLWs are reaching those people most in need, they are equipped to deal with a wide range of issues with a large proportion of their contacts being with people who have mental health issues.

Over the next 5 years the Scottish Government is increasing additional investment to £35 million for 800 additional mental health workers. We will be working with local partners on priorities, service models and types of workers. Some of this investment could go towards more community links workers across Scotland if that is what local needs and arrangements require.

The Information and Statistics Division (ISD) annual report “Prescribing in Mental Health” provides summary information on antidepressant use in Scottish Health Boards. This report is published online, the latest report was published on 4 October 2016 and is available at: http://www.isdscotland.org/Publications/ . Included within the data tables as part of this publication is a breakdown by health board of the number of anti-depressants prescribed from 2005-06 to 2015-16.

The Scottish Government has published “Key Information on the use of Antidepressants in Scotland” which can be found online at: http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0045/00456540.pdf

On 28^th June 2017, I met the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor General and the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, to discuss Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership’s safer drug consumption and heroin assisted treatment proposals.

On 16 June 2017, senior officials from Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership wrote to the Lord Advocate in connection with their safer consumption proposals. A written response to this correspondence will be provided in due course.

Proposals for a combined safer drug consumption and heroin assisted treatment facility are matters for authorities in Glasgow to take forward at this time. Scottish Ministers have encouraged Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership to consult sensitively and robustly with relevant stakeholders and the public as they take their proposals forward.