Mental health and wellbeing strategy - delivery plan and workforce action plan: progress update and next steps

Introduction

Since the publication of our joint Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy in June 2023, a wide range of actions have been taken forward to enable progress towards the Strategy’s vision of:

“a Scotland, free from stigma and inequality, where everyone fulfils their right to achieve the best mental health and wellbeing possible.”

The Strategy identified the following ten key priorities, based on engagement with stakeholders. We see these as crucial to drive improvement across the whole system, at all levels of need.

• Tackle mental health stigma and discrimination where it exists and ensure people can talk about their mental health and wellbeing and access the person-centred support they require.
• Improve population mental health and wellbeing, building resilience and enabling people to access the right information and advice in the right place for them and in a range of formats.
• 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.
• Expand and improve the support available to people in mental health distress and crisis, and those who care for them, through our national approach on Time, Space, Compassion.
• Work across Scottish and Local Government and with partners to develop a collective approach to understanding and shared responsibility for promoting good mental health and addressing the causes of mental health inequalities, supporting groups who are particularly at risk.
• Improve mental health and wellbeing support in a wide range of settings with reduced waiting times and improved outcomes for people accessing all services, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and psychological therapies.
• Ensure people receive the quality of care and treatment required for the time required, supporting care as close to home as possible and promoting independence and recovery.
• Continue to improve support for those in the forensic mental health system.
• Strengthen support and care pathways for people requiring neurodevelopmental support, working in partnership with health, social care, education, the third sector and other delivery partners. This will ensure those who need it receive the right care and support at the right time in a way that works for them.
• Reduce the risk of poor mental health and wellbeing in adult life by promoting the importance of good relationships and trauma-informed approaches from the earliest years of life, taking account where relevant adverse childhood experiences. We will ensure help is available early on when there is a risk of poor mental health, and support the physical health and wellbeing of people with mental health conditions.

The Delivery Plan accompanying the Strategy, published in November 2023, was built around these priorities, setting out initial actions under each.

We also recognise and highly value the fundamental role of the workforce in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our communities. We know that making progress towards the Strategy’s vision, and delivering against our specific actions, can only be achieved with a workforce with the right capacity and skills.

The Workforce Action Plan, also published in November 2023, therefore sought to support this, setting out a range of actions to address key workforce issues.

This interim publication lays out the successes and challenges emerging from taking forward the current Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan to date. It also describes our approach to refreshing both documents in early 2026, the underpinning principles for this forthcoming work, our next steps, and an indicative timeline for the production of a refreshed Plan.

Across the system, we face significant challenges in terms of resources, and the capacity of services to respond to increasing demand. In this context, our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy remains our blueprint for what a well-functioning whole mental health system looks like as we seek to ensure that the best support possible is available in the right place at the right time.

To ensure the Strategy results in the transformational change to mental health and wellbeing that we all want to see, we need to understand where we are making progress and make sure the actions we have committed to remain the right ones. With this in mind, refreshing our Delivery Plan and Workforce Action Plan is key.

This is especially so given that a Service Renewal Framework (SRF) is intended for publication shortly which will complement the new Population Health Framework. The SRF will set out the policy intent for health and social care service reform in the medium to longer term. There is no health without mental health, and the refreshed Delivery Plan will be crucial in illustrating how we are taking meaningful action to contribute to wider ambitions for the whole system, within the wider programme of renewal.

By ensuring that our revised Plan contains the right strategic actions, taking account of both progress and context, we can ensure we make progress against the Strategy’s outcomes, and in turn move ever closer to achieving our Vision.

Maree Todd MSP

Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport

Councillor Paul Kelly

COSLA Spokesperson for Health and Social Care