Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group: collaborative commitments plan

Annex B

Strategic Mapping

Of particular relevance to the collaborative commitments set out in this document is Priority 4 of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy: Delivery Plan 2023-2025 which lays out our commitment to ‘expand and improve the support available to people in mental health distress and crisis and those who care for them through our national approach on Time, Space and Compassion’, with a focus not only on improving the response, but also on keeping the person experiencing distress or crisis safe and preventing their situation from escalating further. The Scottish Government has already started to deliver on a number of actions in the Delivery Plan supporting this priority, such as:

• full national coverage of the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme. DBI has been live locally in all 31 Health and Social Care Partnership areas (therefore covering all 14 NHS Board areas), since November 2024 . Police Scotland have been key national partners in DBI since the initial development of the pilot phase of the programme – so far, Police pathways to DBI exist in several, but not all, of the local DBI areas. Police Scotland also provide one of three national pathways to DBI, via its call handling centres which link to NHS24 via the Mental Health Pathway - in such cases this avoids the need for officers having to attend in person, thus freeing up important staff resources. Since launch as a pilot, over 75,000 people have been referred for DBI support (data correct up to end October 2024). Around 8-9% of referrals to DBI are from Police Scotland.


• Continue to invest in NHS 24’s Mental Health Hub. The Mental Health Hub started providing 24/7 support in July 2020 and has modernised pathways into mental health services. The Mental Health Hub, which is accessible through the 111 service, is available to anyone who requires mental health and wellbeing support or if they are in distress. Calls are answered by a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner who offer an empathetic response and will triage people using a psychosocial assessment to either help manage their needs or direct them to the most appropriate form of support. Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners are specially trained staff who are expertly supported by Mental Health Nurses.


• Continue to invest in the Enhanced Mental Health Pathway and promote partnership working to increase Police Scotland and Scottish Ambulance Service access to local clinical support. The pathway enables emergency calls received by Police Scotland or SAS where callers are identified as needing mental health advice and support to be directed to the Mental Health Hub. Work is ongoing between Police Scotland and NHS 24 to increase the referrals from Police Scotland’s Command and Control Centre (C3) Division to the Mental Health Hub, and we are working on improving the call transfer process with the aim of achieving a warm handover between the two services.


• Increase awareness of pathways into support and care by developing national awareness raising activity. Through the Mental Health Unscheduled Care Network, we have developed national messaging outlining how people can access urgent mental health support. This messaging was published on NHS inform in December 2023 with work currently underway to roll-out regular social media posts to signpost people to the page. We are also looking at developing more tailored messaging for marginalised and equality groups.


• Develop and publish a mental health unscheduled care resource pack. The resource will provide a directory of national sources of help and support that the Mental Health Unscheduled Care workforce can connect or a signpost a person to, to complement the support, assessment and treatment that the individual will receive from unscheduled care services.


• Take an evidence-based approach to our improvement work to better understand how people are accessing and receiving unplanned mental health care. The Scottish Government is working with Health Boards and Public Health Scotland on the lead in work, and this data will measure the impact of the changes to the mental health unscheduled care pathway to date and identify opportunities for further improvements while ensuring that these are underpinned by robust data.

In addition, the Scottish Government continues to fund the SAS Mental Health Paramedic Response Units. Action 15 funding was allocated to SAS to deliver the Mental Health Paramedic Response Units (MHPRU) in Inverness, Dundee and Glasgow. The ambitions of the project is focused on working collaboratively with local health boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to provide joined up care to people requiring mental health assessment after they have contacted 999 for ambulance support. The evaluation of this pilot project found a reduction in conveyance to Emergency Departments (ED) for people attended by the MHPRU and anticipated there being potential benefit to the patient by bringing specialist mental health assessment to them, rather than having to go via ED to access this care.

The Scottish Government have also funded the SAS High Intensity User Pilot. The project started in 2021 and was later expanded, supported by funding from the Scottish Government. The team identified 137 patients over the age of 18 years old who had generated 12 or more 999 incidents in 3 months, and/or 5 or more 999 incidents in a 1-month period. Four clinicians were recruited to support the process development and function as a single point of contact for patients, staff and the wider multidisciplinary team. This person-centred approach aided in supporting patients, by enhancing their confidence in accessing care and enabling the service users to hear their own voice in the process of care planning. Patients received the right care for their needs closer to home or within their local community. In total the number of incidents SAS attended (related to this cohort) nationally, dropped by 55% from 3216 to 1441. This reduction in attendance and conveyance time meant that crews had increased availability to respond to patients who required conveyance, helping to reduce demand on the service and other healthcare providers. As a result, SAS has embedded this model into their service provision and expanded the service to children and young people.

As part of the whole system response the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults, and the Children and Young People’s Community Mental Health and Wellbeing have been awarded £15 million each for 2024-25. Launched in 2021, the fund for adults has supported grass roots community groups to deliver programmes for adults which build resilience and tackle social isolation, loneliness and mental health inequalities. Projects focused on connecting people and providing peer support were delivered through activities such as sport, outdoor activities and the arts. The Children and Young People’s funding supports deliver of community-based mental health and wellbeing support for five to 24 year-olds and their families. Support delivered includes mentoring, art-based therapies, digital services, whole-family support, counselling and sport or physical activities.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan

Improving the mental health and wellbeing of Scotland’s population and ensuring everyone receives the best possible care and support from our health and care services can only be achieved with the right workforce capacity and capability.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan 2023-2025 (the Plan) aims to ensure that the commitments in the Strategy are underpinned by a resilient and sustainable workforce, that feel valued and supported to promote better mental health and wellbeing outcomes. The Plan is aligned to the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care placing training, wellbeing, job satisfaction and the principles of Fair Work at its heart. Using this framework, the Plan looks at the whole workforce journey and sets out actions to support how we plan for, attract, train, employ and nurture our mental health and wellbeing workforce. However, the Workforce Action Plan is not intended to cover all five pillars for the entire mental health and wellbeing workforce. We know that roles and responsibilities for workforce planning, training and regulation vary between different sectors of the mental health and wellbeing workforce, including those of Police Scotland.

The Strategy and Workforce Action Plan considers that the mental health and wellbeing workforce is made up of the core mental health and wellbeing workforce and the wider mental wellbeing workforce.

The core mental health and wellbeing workforce consists primarily of those who provide frontline mental health services and treatments for all age groups and from various sectors. These are staff who are specifically employed in services within statutory organisations, the independent sector or the third sector to support mental health and wellbeing. This includes, but is not limited to, staff in mental health services (such as mental health nurses, psychiatrists, and psychologists), third sector mental health support, social work staff who provide mental health support (including Mental Health Officers), GP’s and mental health pharmacists.

The wider mental wellbeing workforce includes roles in the public, third, and independent sectors which, although not directly employed in providing mental health services, support treatment and recovery, have an important role in supporting someone’s mental health and wellbeing or play a significant role in promoting good mental health for all. Examples include but are not limited to, employers, wider health, social work and social care staff, police officers and school staff.

Other Strategies and Reform Programmes

The mental health policy landscape is complex; and other key strategies and reform agenda also contribute towards the whole systems approach.

The Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme has been established to look at how we can update and modernise our mental health and capacity legislation. The Scottish Government published the Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme Delivery Plan (the Delivery plan) in June 2024 - Scotland's Mental Health and Wellbeing: Strategy (www.gov.scot). The Delivery Plan focuses on the work that will be led by Scottish Government between October 2023 to April 2025.

The Delivery Plan sets out our three strategic aims, the first being mental health law reform. Work is being taken forward to prioritise areas of potential change that can be achieved as quickly as possible, within existing resources and recognising the pressure on budgets and services, as well as starting new work to scope and develop options for future reform. One key objective is considering issues around Emergency Detention Certificates (EDCs) under the Mental Health Act. Further detail in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan which links to the work being taken forward to support the implementation of the Action Plan includes:

• Priority 1.12: Ensure there is clarification around the powers of force and detention.


• Priority 2.6: The Scottish Government will work to better understand practice around the granting of EDCs as part of our work to review PEPs confirms that we are working to better understand practice around the granting of EDCs as part of our work to review PEPs and the review will be completed later this year.

Work is also taking place to scope options for reform of the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000.

The Scottish Government is taking action jointly with COSLA to reduce the number of deaths by suicide. Creating Hope Together: Suicide Prevention Strategy, Creating Hope Together Delivery Plan 2024-2026 set out the Strategy and Actions being taken to ensures government and local services work together to support anyone at risk of suicide or affected by it, while tackling underlying factors that can lead to suicide, such as inequalities, stigma and discrimination, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic and cost of living crisis. Considerable progress has been made in 2023/2024 laying strong foundations for ongoing delivery. Key achievements have been:

• Establishing Suicide Prevention Scotland’s leadership team and the wider delivery collective to realise our ambition to create a community of organisations across Scotland.


• Establishing strong relationships with local suicide prevention leads and providing the opportunities and resources to support them in their role.


• Taking forward work to address inequalities in suicide prevention and building connections with organisations who work with people impacted by discrimination, stigma, inequality and wider social determinants of suicide who can support this.


• Connecting with a wide range of third sector organisations delivering suicide prevention actions and providing opportunities for networking, sharing learning, and supporting implementation of the action plan.


• Building connections with National Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (NSPAG) members and national organisations to create links to sectors and groups where there is a higher risk of suicide.


• Refreshing our Lived and Living Experience Panel and Youth Advisory Group, and establishing a Lived and Living Experience Steering Group.


• Building on the outcomes framework to develop monitoring and evaluation processes which will help to demonstrate the impact of the work.


• Delivering on the broad range of work within the Creating Hope Together Action Plan.

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.

The Scottish Government is working to provide improved access to high-quality and integrated care for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use issues. The Alcohol and Drugs Workforce Action Plan, provides detail how mental health and substance use services should work together to provide high quality care and is aligned to the Workforce Action Plan. It sets out further actions Scottish Government and partners will take including to progress training opportunities, ensuring that services are well informed and fully empowered to support the mental health needs of people who use drugs and alcohol.