Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group: collaborative commitments plan

Building Capacity and Capability

The Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan commits to expand and improve the support available to people in mental health distress and crisis and those who care for them, while the Mental Health & Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan contains actions to improve education and training to support this work. It is essential that all agencies and services providing a response to individuals in distress or crisis have suitable knowledge and training.

Police Scotland have in place an enhanced mental health pathway with NHS 24 which ensures that calls for service are fully assessed and individuals seeking support for mental health distress or crisis are identified and, as far as possible, referred to the appropriate agency for that support at the point of contact.

The national roll out of the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme provides compassionate and personalised support to people in emotional distress who come into contact with frontline services. Alongside national access to DBI through referral by NHS24, and through call handling centres in SAS and Police Scotland, all Health & Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) in Scotland have committed to local delivery. In addition, a standalone University of Glasgow / NHS Education Scotland e-learning module ‘Recognising and Responding to Distress’ is available for organisations not directly involved in the DBI programme. The module aims to provide widely accessible distress intervention learning for the non-DBI community, enabling organisations across Scotland to provide a compassionate and effective response to people in distress at point of contact.

Furthermore, the national Police Scotland suicide notification form is in place to ensure consistent practice, and provides a national template for data sharing, collation, and reporting. While data sharing is already established within local policing divisions, the amount of information and format in which it is shared currently varies nationally.

Lastly, as part of the Workforce Action Plan, work is underway to develop a training framework for the wider mental health and wellbeing workforce, volunteers, peer support/ recovery workers and carers. The framework will bring together existing mental health and wellbeing training resources and ensure that it is on an accessible landing page. This will also support work to embed sustainable trauma-informed approaches using evidence-based training and support available through the National Trauma Transformation Programme, “Roadmap to Trauma-Informed and Responsive Change: Guidance for Organisations, Systems and Workforces in Scotland”.

10. In line with national roll-out and increase of Level 2 providers across Scotland we will:

a) ensure SAS and local policing divisions have staff trained in level 1 DBI referral processes to ensure SAS and local police pathways are working effectively (the number of staff trained will be agreed through local planning), and;

b) support the implementation of the national pathway with Police Scotland call handlers.

What will this do?

• Ensure HSCPs, SAS, Police Scotland and other key partners work together on training roll out.


• People in distress who could benefit from non-clinical intervention are better supported.


• Ambulance Crew and police officers are provided with the knowledge and skills to support and ease a person’s distress, provide a compassionate response and, where appropriate, provide a referral to DBI level 2.

Who will lead?

• HSCPs.


• SAS.


• Police Scotland.

When will we do it by?

• Training will be dependent on local planning by H&SCPs in liaison with Police and other partners, and on capacity of Level 2 providers locally.

11. We will continue to improve and increase the use of the Enhanced Mental Health Pathway.

What will this do?

• Learning opportunity reviews are undertaken to identify where the pathway or referral routes could have been used as set out within Framework for Collaboration.


• Support understanding of individuals being referred to Policing or Ambulance from NHS24.

Who will lead?

• Police Scotland.


• SAS.


• NHS 24.

When will we do it by?

• During 2025, continuing into 2026.

12. We will ensure national delivery of the Police Scotland Suicide Notification form for information sharing.

What will this do?

• Ensure national consistency and a level of uniformity whilst ensuring compliance with data protection.


• Provide a human rights-based approach to information sharing.


• Enhance opportunities for local proactivity around locations of concern.

Who will lead?

• Police Scotland.

When will we do it by?

• During 2025.

13. We will improve Mental Health awareness and training internally within Police Scotland for national consistency

What will this do?

• Ensure officers and staff are trained consistently, appropriately and effectively to respond to MH related incidents, including the development of suicide prevention and intervention skills.


• Explore collaborative MH and leadership training opportunities.


• Utilise resources and training developed through the Mental Health & Wellbeing Workforce Education and Training Advisory Group, which supports delivery of the Mental Health and Wellbeing strategy, Self Harm and Suicide Prevention Strategies.

Who will lead?

• Police Scotland.

When will we do it by?

• During 2025, continuing into 2026.

14. We will scope areas of joint training between Police Scotland, Scottish Ambulance Service Health Boards, and other (local) partners, including the third sector as appropriate.

What will this do?

• Scope out opportunities for joint training between partners, based on the learning from existing joint training programmes taking place across Scotland.


• Support understanding of partners roles and responsibilities, ensure smoother handovers, increasing knowledge, improving confidence and attitudes when responding to someone in distress or in crisis and help achieve the principles which underpin effective multi-agency collaborative approaches.

Who will lead?

• Police Scotland.


• SAS.


• NHS Boards.

When will we do it by?

• During 2025, continuing into 2026.