Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group: collaborative commitments plan

Introduction

Improving mental health and wellbeing is a key priority across Scottish society. This not only includes providing essential mental health services for those who need them, but also focusing on improving overall public wellbeing and helping prevent illness.

We know that multiple factors can impact mental health and wellbeing, and that poor mental health and wellbeing is not only detrimental to individuals but also places additional demands on services and supports, and on the people that provide them.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy: Delivery Plan 2023-2025 and Workforce Action Plan 2023-2025 were published jointly by Scottish Government and COSLA on 7 November 2023, setting out actions that will be undertaken across Scottish and Local Government, Health Boards, and the third and community sector to make progress towards the outcomes and priorities in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which was published on 29 June 2023.

As described in the strategy, a whole system approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing provides a foundation for better joint working, ensures that people can access the right care, in the right place, at the right time, and supports our shared vision of “a Scotland, free from stigma and inequality, where everyone fulfils their right to achieve the best mental health and wellbeing possible”.

The joint work around the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy aims to:

• Promote positive mental health and wellbeing for the whole population, improving understanding and tackling stigma, inequality and discrimination;


• Prevent mental health issues occurring or escalating and tackle underlying causes, adversities and inequalities wherever possible; and


• Provide mental health and wellbeing support and care, ensuring people and communities can access the right information, skills, services and opportunities in the right place at the right time, using a person-centred approach.

COSLA and the Scottish Government are also taking action to reduce the number of deaths by suicide, through actions described in Creating Hope Together: Suicide Prevention Strategy and Creating Hope Together Delivery Plan 2024-2026 . The strategy aims to tackle underlying factors that can lead to suicide, such as inequalities, stigma, and discrimination, which have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis. The Self Harm Strategy and its Action Plan, also jointly owned by the Scottish Government and COSLA, aims for anyone affected by self-harm to receive compassionate, recovery-focused support without fear of stigma and discrimination, and it retains an important connection to the work on suicide prevention.

In its thematic review of policing mental health in Scotland, published on 18 October 2023, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) recognised that mental health is a multifaceted issue requiring an effective whole-system response and set out a number of recommendations for Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA), the Scottish Government, and other bodies. Policing plays an important role in improving the safety and well-being of individuals, localities and communities in Scotland.

The Vision for Justice in Scotland sets out the importance of people in contact with the justice system being able to access the correct support, and it recognises that effective partnerships are essential to improving the mental health and wellbeing of those who encounter the justice system.

We recognise our respective organisations’ differing roles, responsibilities, and capacity in delivering on the range of commitments and outcomes described above. We also know wider partnership work will be crucial; delivering change and improving outcomes will rely largely on the people who work within and across sectors to improve the mental health and wellbeing of our communities. They will also need a cross-society approach. This includes local and national government, and public bodies such as the Social Care sector, NHS, Police Scotland and Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS), as well as the third sector.

To support alignment of the range of commitments and outcomes outlined above, and to ensure a focus on those in distress and crisis who come in contact with emergency services and the justice systems, our multi-agency Partnership Delivery Group (PDG) has identified a range of collaborative commitments that we have set out within this document. These commitments interconnect with the strategies and plans outlined above, build on the work and learning achieved to date in the crisis and unscheduled care landscape, and also support the implementation of the principles and recommendations made in the Scottish Government’s Framework for Collaboration (FfC) that underpin effective, local collaborative multi-agency approaches to distress.

The commitments seek to bring together the range of stakeholders who have an active interest in providing the seamless care that individuals seek. We understand this is not always straight forward. It is therefore the aim of PDG to contribute to resolving this difficult problem and to bring to life what can be done through the principles for joined up working within the FfC and our collaborative commitments, which have a specific focus on improving the mental health distress and crisis response as well as the interactions with and between our emergency services. Further detail on, and mapping of, the outcomes, priorities and actions being implemented to deliver a whole systems approach to improving mental health and wellbeing in Scotland are contained in Annexes A and B.

Delivery and Accountability

The PDG has made a series of collaborative commitments across a range of priority thematic areas:

• Communication


• Improved transfer of care between partners


• Building capacity and capability, including improved data and evidence available to partners


• Strengthening community-based provision

These commitments will be progressed and reviewed over the period 2025-2028, with implementation and delivery supported through the PDG and progressed by PDG members as set out within specific commitments. Progress will be reported through established governance routes including the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Leadership Board, co-chaired by Scottish Government and COSLA, and the Scottish Police Authority Policing Performance Committee. Once approved through the established governance routes, an annual progress report will be presented to the publicly accessible SPA Policing Performance Committee and thereafter published, in Autumn each year. To support reporting against the commitments, and assist in evidencing the impact of our work, the PDG will scope the development of a proportionate performance framework aligned to the commitments. This will draw from data sources across all partner agencies and publicly available sources to provide a comprehensive framework reflecting both quantitative and qualitative indicators.