Mental health nursing: review

Overview

We are reviewing mental health nursing in Scotland to identify what more needs to be done to attract, grow, support and develop the workforce.

This will help ensure we can best meet the health and wellbeing needs of the people of Scotland.  

Review focus 

The Scottish Mental Health Nursing Review is being led by a Scottish Government team, supported by an independent panel of experts. They will make recommendations to improve and develop the mental health nursing workforce.

It will consider a range of themes relevant to mental health nursing, including: 

• voice, leadership and professionalism 
• education and research 
• workforce planning and development
• promotion of health and wellbeing
• quality and safety of rights-based care

The review is expected to continue until late 2024.

The work of the review is also supported and informed by two subgroups:

• Mental Health Nursing Review Leadership Advisory Group
• Mental Health Nursing Review Practitioner Reference Group

Engaging with others

We will engage with a wide range of people and organisations to help shape and inform the review, including:

• mental health nurses
• people with lived and living experience of receiving mental health nursing care
• carers
• students
• charities
• trade unions and professional organisations

Through this engagement, we hope to be able to give voice to as many mental health nurses as possible in Scotland, working across diverse service settings, and at all levels. 

The feedback from this local engagement has been collated and will be used to inform what areas the Review should explore in more detail and seek to make recommendations on. There will be further opportunities to share your views as the review progresses.   

Good practice: share your examples 

If you work in mental health nursing in Scotland we would like to hear about your examples of good practice. This could include things like new ways of using data and technology, positive examples of prevention and early intervention, and leading service improvements.

Find out more and share details in our mental health nursing review questionnaire. 

There will be further opportunities to share your views as the review progresses. 

Background 

The review is one of a number of actions to improve key workforce issues, set out in our 2023 Mental health and wellbeing workforce action plan and associated equality impact assessment. 

Publications