Leadership Board - Fifth meeting: update paper

4. Updates on other areas of work

Work continues to develop across key areas, both aligned with and responding to current pressures and extending beyond the actions set out in the Delivery and Workforce Action Plans. This includes for example -

Neurodevelopmental Support

• The draft mental health programme budget, announced on 13 January, included additional investment of £7.65 million to enable improvements in neurodevelopmental assessments and care for young people.
• In December 2025, the Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing hosted Scotland’s first cross-party Summit on Neurodevelopmental Support.
• It brought together key partners across health, education, local government and academia to discuss how we can collectively respond to the current demand for neurodevelopmental support and diagnosis.
• The Summit considered the limitations of diagnosis-led systems, workforce and capacity pressures, and the need for earlier, needs-based and more co-ordinated support throughout people's lives. A further summit will be convened in the coming weeks.
• A Taskforce, jointly chaired by Health and Education, is also currently working to progress the recommendations of the review of the CYP Neurodevelopmental service specification.

Suicide Prevention

• The Scottish Government and COSLA published their second joint Creating Hope Together: Scotland's Suicide Prevention Action Plan 2026-2029 on 22 January.
• This Action Plan is built on learning from the work of Suicide Prevention Scotland over the last three years.
• It includes learning from: academia; those providing support; people with lived and living experience; and the wider communities with whom we work. These voices, alongside data, evidence and wider feedback, have been vital in shaping this Action Plan and the development of all our approaches to suicide prevention and recovery support more broadly.
• The four long-term outcomes and key principles of the Creating Hope Together Strategy will continue to guide this work, with the Action Plan providing the direction of travel for this second stage of delivery.
• This will be followed up by the development of a more detailed annual delivery plan for 2026-2027.

Framework for Supporting Children and Young People Experiencing Mental Health Crisis

• A key priority for the Child and Family Mental Health Joint Strategic Board was children and young people in crisis and they have supported the exploration of a Framework for Supporting Children and Young People Experiencing Mental Health Crisis.
• The Framework, currently being finalised, aims to provide the principles of what cohesive and effective support for children and young people experiencing a mental health crisis should look like across Scotland.
• At a local level, the Framework is a tool for partners, service managers, commissioners, planners, and practitioners to reflect on their current practice to inform an integrated approach to the provision of crisis support for children and young people which has GIRFEC at its core.
• It will also highlight the contribution and role which a range of services can play in relation to supporting children and young people, such as specialist crisis services, mental health services, social work and other statutory services.
• This includes services focused on crisis and those not typically designed to deliver crisis support, but which may be the first port of call for a child or young person.
• At a national level, the Framework is a tool to inform future policy development and guidance, ensuring and supporting greater consistency in expectations around crisis support for children, young people and their families.

Communities Mental Health & Wellbeing Fund for Adults

• The First Minister announced in December 2025 a further £3 million for the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults in Year 5 (2025-26). This ensures that those in the community can receive support for their mental health and wellbeing through local grass root community initiatives. A further £15 million is committed in 2026-27 as part of the Fairer Funding pilot.
• Since 2021, more than 6,100 grants have been awarded through the Fund to projects, including those that deliver:
  • support groups for people with long-term health conditions
  • walking, cycling and fitness sessions to reduce stress
  • arts and music programmes to build confidence and social connection
  • befriending services for older adults and carers.

Restraint - Code of Practice update and national monitoring

• The Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing wrote to NHS Boards in October 2025 to inform them of the Scottish Government’s intention to revise the Code of Practice under the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 to include UNCRC compliant guidance on the use of restrictive practices in inpatient mental health settings. This will be revised before the end of October 2026.
• The Mental Welfare Commission will also undertake a new role on monitoring and reporting on the use of restrictive practices in inpatient mental health settings. This will include working with Boards to improve and standardise the collection of data relating to the use of restrictive practices with a view to publishing this data nationally.

Adults with Incapacity (AWI)

• The Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 (the Act) requires reform to bring it in line with international standards on human rights and to reflect the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Particularly, it requires a framework to allow deprivation of liberty of adults with incapacity in line with European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) requirements. The intention is to bring forward a legislative package in the next parliamentary term, informed by the workstreams now underway and by the voices of those with lived experience.
• Two key governance structures have been established: the Adults with incapacity reform: Expert Working Group , which has met five times, and the Adults with incapacity reform: Ministerial Oversight Group, which is chaired by the Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing and has met twice.
• The Expert Working Group has completed the discovery phase for a deprivation of liberty framework and will be moving on to consider the principles of the AWI Act.
• Engagement with those with lived experience remains a central priority. Meetings have taken place with a number of representative organisations to explore how best we can involve individuals and families directly affected by the legislation in a meaningful and sustainable way. Work is now underway to develop a comprehensive engagement plan early in 2026, thereby ensuring that reform is informed by practical experience and firmly grounded in human rights principles.

Expanding Mental Health Hub

• Work is underway to diversify the support available to individuals by expanding the care outcomes available to the NHS Mental Health Hub. This will provide individuals with access to more care options at the right time and close to home and introduce a national route to timely and appropriate access to evidence based digital psychological treatments.

Improving multi agency support approach to supporting those experiencing mental health distress

• Partners including Health Boards, Third Sector, Police Scotland, NHS 24, and Scottish Ambulance Service continue to drive improvement though the Mental Health Partnership Delivery Group (PDG) to ensure people are able to access the right service, at the right time.
• A collaboration event on 12 February 2026, will mark one year since the publication of the Framework for Collaboration and Collaborative Commitments. The event will bring together the HSCP sector to shape the next phase of work and it will provide a platform to co-design practical solutions and strengthen multi-agency working.