Mental health and wellbeing strategy: delivery plan 2023-2025

Priority 3

Increase mental health capacity within General Practice and primary care, universal services and community based mental health supports. Promote the whole system, whole person approach by helping partners to work together and removing barriers faced by people from marginalised groups when accessing services.

Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8

Challenges and opportunities:

• Global challenges
• Stigma and discrimination
• Delivering supports and services
• Primary and community care
• Data and evidence
• Workforce

Key area of focus

This priority focuses on building mental health and wellbeing capacity in local communities across Scotland. It also seeks to increase non- medical and community models of support, from early intervention and distress invention approaches, to recovery and general wellbeing support for those who need it.

We will consider mental health and wellbeing holistically, promoting the provision of, and connections to supports and services that challenge the negative determinates of health and wellbeing. These include loneliness and poverty, as well as those that are protective in nature, such as those that promote good physical health. To achieve this, we will support community-based support for mental health and wellbeing and promote effective links between mental health supports and those addressing wider connected issues. This goes beyond signposting and will require ongoing collaboration between community planning partners, including local authorities, health and social care partnerships and the third sector. These are key partners who fully understand their communities’ needs and can deliver this in a practical, non-stigmatising way.

Our work under this priority will build on work we have been doing through our community support for children and young people and adults, and work we have done to increase multi-disciplinary teams around primary care.

Outcomes

• The overall mental health and wellbeing of the population is increased and mental health inequalities are reduced.
• People with mental health conditions, including those with co-existing health conditions experience improved quality and length of life, free from stigma and discrimination.
• People have an increased knowledge and understanding of mental health and wellbeing and how to access appropriate support.
• We adopt a ‘mental health and wellbeing in all policies’ approach to facilitate cross- policy actions that more effectively address the wide-ranging social, economic and environmental factors that impact people’s mental health and wellbeing, including poverty, stigma, discrimination, and injustice.
• Comprehensive support and services that promote and support people’s mental health and wellbeing are available in a timely way that meets and respects individual needs.
• Mental health policies, support, care, and treatment are better informed and shaped by people with lived experience of mental health issues and staff practitioners, with a focus on high quality provision that is recovery orientated.
• Decision-makers and practitioners (including the third sector) are better able to access the evidence, research and data they need to ensure a more evidence-based approach to policy formation and practice.

Strategic Action 3.1: We will continue to provide and improve Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Supports and Services for children, young people and their families, which focus on prevention and early intervention and provide support for emotional distress in a community setting.

3.1.1 Over the lifespan of the Delivery Plan, continue to fund local authorities to provide community based mental health and wellbeing supports for children and young people, focused on prevention, early intervention and emotional distress.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government Local authorities

3.1.2 Review and refresh the Children and Young People’s Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Supports and Services Framework within the life of this Delivery Plan.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government/COSLA Local authorities, SYP

3.1.3 Work closely with stakeholders to enhance the focus on mental health within Children’s Services Planning processes. This will include the co-development of a national briefing during the life of this Delivery Plan.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government/COSLA Local authorities, NHS Boards

Strategic Action 3.2: We will continue to build capacity in local services and third sector community groups, in order to ensure everyone in Scotland, particularly people most at risk, are able to access mental health and wellbeing support within their local communities.

3.2.1 Provide a third year of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults in 2023/24, to be delivered by TSI-led local partnerships. This will increase access to community based mental health and wellbeing support with a focus on addressing inequalities and those facing socio-economic disadvantage.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government TSIs

3.2.2 Build on the first two years of the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults by using the Fund National Network to inform future practice by sharing emerging learning and to support capacity building amongst TSIs, their partners and individual projects; and disseminating learning from the independent evaluation.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government TSIs, local authorities, HSCPs, third sector organisations

3.2.3 Actively promote the value of community based interventions for both children and young people and adults, sharing good practice through a range of joint communications activities and national learning events by March 2024.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government/COSLA TSIs, local authorities, HSCPs, third sector organisations

3.2.4 Address the unique challenges faced by those living in remote, rural and island communities, we will work with the Scottish Rural Mental Health Forum in 2023/24 to gather and share evidence, to provide strategic insight into the barriers faced by rural and island communities and build their resilience.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government Local authorities, Scottish Rural Mental Health Forum, Change Mental Health

Strategic Action 3.3: We will drive a shift in the balance of care across mental health to ensure a focus on prevention and early intervention in the community, including a focus on providing high quality mental health care in General Practice.

3.3.1 Work collaboratively to improve access to support, assessment and treatment in primary care mental health and wellbeing services. This will include the development of multi-disciplinary teams in general practice, and maximising the role of community mental health teams, digital provision and NHS 24 to make access simpler and quicker, aligning care and quality with the Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE) principles. We will produce an initial report on progress, which will include equality impacts, by November 2024.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government IJBs, NHS Boards, GP practices, NHS 24, Scottish Ambulance Services (SAS), Police Scotland

3.3.2 Publish guidance on measuring and evaluating outcomes from mental health and wellbeing services in primary care by the end of 2023. This includes data indicators for protected characteristics and deprivation.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), GP practices

3.3.3 Continue to include primary care and community mental health as priorities within the Mental Health Outcomes Framework.

Lead and Key Partners: Scottish Government IJBs, NHS Boards