Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan

Foreword

Joint introduction from Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs, Maree Todd and COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson, Councillor Paul Kelly

In jointly introducing this updated Delivery Plan, we recognise and value the progress that’s been made since we published the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy in 2023. This is largely due to the dedication and hard work of those working and volunteering in mental health and wellbeing supports and services across the public and third sectors. From carers, peer support workers and psychiatrists, to those supporting service design across planning partnerships, we highly value the wide range of work undertaken, and look forward to continuing to work together towards Scotland’s vision for mental health and wellbeing.

We also acknowledge that the publication of two overarching strategic frameworks in 2025 – the Population Health Framework and Service Renewal Framework – provide a renewed focus on prevention. Effective preventative work will both improve outcomes for people and reduce need and demand for acute services. These frameworks will help guide the future implementation of this Delivery Plan and the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

We want to set out our priorities to improve Scotland’s mental health and mental wellbeing over the next three years. Just like physical health, supporting and maintaining good mental health and wellbeing is a lifelong process, and everyone will go through periods of better and worse mental health and wellbeing throughout their lives, with the challenges people experience varying in severity. We need a system that can adapt to meet these different needs across a lifetime.

Prevention and early intervention are key to our approach. We want to make sure that everyone can thrive, that mental health issues are prevented from happening or getting worse and everyone has support available if they need it, where possible, close to home.

Many of life’s ups and downs can be managed through self-care and we want to make sure high quality information, advice and self-help resources online are available to support you when you need this. We want to ensure you can access support where it suits you best.

We understand that children and young people need to be able to use a range of support that is appropriate for their age and stage and they should be able to access support at the time when they need it. Providing support early is important in preventing poor mental health when it happens in childhood, but also throughout their lives. For the same reason, we want everyone to be able to access effective perinatal and infant mental health support if they need it.

We want to ensure that if you feel low, lonely or anxious, you can access support through an enhanced range of services including NHS 24, via schools, colleges and universities, employers and third sector or peer support groups in local communities. Our vision is that this will include more places where you can walk in and get help for common mental wellbeing issues. If you need further help, your GP can give you access to psychological therapies or can refer you to further support available in the local community, with a choice between evidence based digital therapies and face to face options.

Perhaps you reach a crisis point in your life where you don’t know where to turn, things feel too much and you suffer a period of extreme distress or feel suicidal. Should this happen, we want you to be able to get help fast and so, building on existing support like the renowned Distress Brief Intervention service, we will increase the number of options that can help, including local crisis support services and the new triage car programme that can provide specialist help in an emergency.

Mental health is affected by a wide range of social, economic and environmental issues, including poverty. In this plan, we have identified areas including employment and housing that, alongside mental health supports, are key to better mental health and wellbeing. We want mental health services to work in a joined up way that connects seamlessly to the wider system, so that support for housing, education, employability support, income maximisation and drugs and alcohol are taken into account, alongside your mental health needs.

Support should work around you or your child, with services working together wherever possible to provide a seamless experience in line with Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE) and Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC).

If someone has a mental health crisis when they are in police custody, at court, in secure care or in prison, they should receive timely assessment, support and continuity of care, with clear pathways between justice, health and community services, before, during and after contact with the justice system.

Unfortunately, barriers to accessing the right mental health care are more common for some of our communities than others and, if you come from certain backgrounds or groups, you may experience much worse mental health than the rest of the population. For example, if you are seeking asylum or are a refugee, you should be able to access appropriate, trauma-informed support for your mental health and wellbeing to help with the impacts of navigating arriving at a new country as well as any past trauma.

Some people will experience a serious mental illness during their lifetime. If you, or someone you care for experiences mental illness, such as an eating disorder, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, you should be able to rely on fast referral and access to high quality specialist mental health services like Community Mental Health Teams, specialist perinatal and infant mental health teams, eating disorder services or child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). You should not have to wait a long time to get help and we are determined to keep working with health boards to make sure waiting times are as short as possible.

Though being neurodivergent is not a mental health condition, if you are neurodivergent, you may also be more likely to experience mental health problems such as anxiety and need support from mental health services too. If your child is neurodivergent, they should also receive the neurodevelopmental support they need at the earliest opportunity, based on the GIRFEC approach. Some of the support and diagnostic services you might need if you are neurodivergent are delivered by mental health services and that is why it we have included it within this Delivery Plan.

We know the actions and aims set out in this Plan are ambitious and are set within the context of significant financial and workforce challenges as well as system change. This Delivery Plan is part of wider system reform and represents a joint commitment from national and local government to take action on poor mental health. Together, we can move towards mental health and wellbeing care that is focused on prevention, values cross sector working and puts the individual at its heart. Our aim is that wherever you live in Scotland, from the smallest island to the biggest city, you can get the information, help and support you need for your mental health, when you need it. Working together, we can help achieve this for every person in Scotland.

Maree Todd, Minister for Mental Wellbeing, Public Health, Sport, Alcohol and Drugs

Councillor Paul Kelly, COSLA Spokesperson for Health and Social Care