Mental health and wellbeing strategy: delivery plan 2023-2025

Equalities and human rights

We want Scotland to be an inclusive country that protects, respects and fulfils internationally recognised human rights and addresses inequalities. This is particularly important for those who are marginalised or vulnerable, those who need to be detained for treatment and those who are unable to make decisions for themselves. Upholding and strengthening equalities and human rights underpins the Strategy and the work set out in this Delivery Plan. Our information, support, services, care and treatment must be person-centred and accessible to all, anti-racist, culturally and gender sensitive, and age-appropriate.

Over the last 18 months, we have engaged with stakeholders, people with lived experience and the Equality and Human Rights Forum to gather evidence and better understand marginalised groups’ experiences of mental health. This evidence has been published in the Scottish Government Mental Health Equality Evidence Report accompanying this Delivery Plan. While there are still some gaps in our evidence base, this Delivery Plan reflects the Report and has been informed by a robust Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) process.

We will tackle mental health inequalities as highlighted in the Inequality Action Table in Appendix 1. Accessible supports and services that are sensitive to the needs of marginalised groups have been highlighted as a priority in evidence and by stakeholders, including Audit Scotland. In this first Plan, we will focus attention on improving equality of access to and experience of mental health support and services with a specific focus on actions under Priorities 4 and 7. We will work closely with the Equality and Human Rights Forum and people with lived experience to develop, test and learn from a good practice approach to implementation.

The actions in this Delivery Plan are built on equality and human rights. We will continue to use the PANEL principles (Participation, Accountability, Non-Discrimination and Equality, Empowerment, and Legality) in taking actions forward and will be publishing a human rights impact assessment. We will review the table in Appendix 1 when we review the Delivery Plan in 18 months.