Delivering for Mental Health: plan

Child and adolescent mental health services

The Mental Health of Children and Young People: A Framework for Promotion, Prevention and Care was published in October 2005. We are committed to implementing the Framework by 2015 and the development of Delivering for Mental Health is intended to support the implementation process. Delivering for Health said that milestones to track progress by 2008 and 2010 would be identified and put in place. Milestones have been consulted on and will be published in early 2007 as part of Delivering a Healthy Future: An Action Framework for Children and Young People's Health in Scotland. Many of the milestones relate to the planning and development process and to workforce development and progress against all of these milestones will be monitored. In addition, two key delivery milestones will be tracked as part of the mental health plan. The identification of these milestones within the plan is intended both to signal our policy intentions with regards to child and adolescent mental health and to raise the profile of the issue for local service delivery agents.

Commitment 10: We will improve mental health services being offered to children and young people by ensuring that by the end of 2008:

• a named mental health link person is available to every school, fulfilling the functions outlined in the Framework;
• basic mental health training should be offered to all those working with, or caring for, looked after and accommodated children and young people.

In Delivering for Health we said that implementation of the psychiatric adolescent inpatient proposals in regional planning areas would be complete by 2010, with 47 beds available nationally by 2008 and 56 beds by 2010. Work to deliver this is being progressed by Regional Planning Partnerships. An increase in the number of beds, together with the development of community services in line with the objectives of the Framework should reduce the need for admissions to adult wards. Therefore we have agreed a third commitment for child and adolescent mental health to reduce inappropriate admissions to adult mental health beds.

Commitment 11: We will reduce the number of admissions of children and young people to adult beds by 50% by 2009.