Scottish Mental Health Nursing Review

2. Foreword

Mental health and wellbeing is a priority for the Scottish Government. Across our health, social care, independent and wider wellbeing services, mental health nurses play a critical role in achieving our ambitions of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy, providing person centred, safe and high-quality mental health services across Scotland. Through their expert care, compassion and dedication to meaningful connection, mental health nurses and nursing staff make a significant and positive impact to people’s health and wellbeing everyday across the length and breadth of Scotland.

As set out in our Workforce Action Plan, the mental health nursing role has evolved significantly, bringing many innovative developments and is at the forefront of service design and sustainable delivery. However, it is also important to recognise and address the challenges faced.

Building on the outputs of the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce, this Mental Health Nursing Review and wider Health and Social Care Reform brings an exciting opportunity to focus on the contemporary role of mental health nurses in Scotland and will ensure the profession is supported and empowered to drive the enhancement of mental health and wellbeing services now, and in the future.

Through adopting a human-centred design approach, the Scottish Mental Health Nursing Review was purposefully consultative, inclusive, and collaborative, with the principles of co-design and co-delivery being central to the work. The voices of our mental health nurses have been heard, and their feedback and ideas have shaped this Review report. I hope that when they read this report, many people will recognise how their input has informed this work.

I am extremely grateful to all the mental health nursing staff, academia, students, trade unions and wider colleagues across Scotland who engaged with and supported the work of the Review. I would like to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to VOX Scotland, Carers Trust and all members of the Mental Health Nursing Review Steering Group, Leadership Advisory Group and Practitioner Reference Group. Your dedication, advice and constructive feedback has been central to the co-designed review process and report.

I am looking forward to working collaboratively to deliver the ambitions within this report and ensuring Scotland is the best place for mental health nursing to flourish. Together, we will advance our commitment to care, compassion, and connection, and achieve our vision of a Scotland where people live longer, healthier and fulfilling lives.

Tom Arthur

Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing

As a Registered Mental Health Nurse, I was delighted to have been asked by the Minister for Mental Health to Chair the Review of Mental Health Nursing in Scotland.

It has been a huge privilege to work with colleagues from across all sectors and stakeholder groups to ensure that we have heard as many views as possible. In particular, I am pleased that we have reviewed the literature around the role and impact of mental health nurses and have sought to identify where good practice and innovation is taking place, and how best to share that work.

Although we are now sharing the key themes and actions that have emerged through this process, we know that we still have more work to do. The review comes at a time where there are ongoing fiscal challenges across organisations. However, there are opportunities to ensure we maximise and align with other national and UK wide reform, and these are embedded in the papers being presented.

One of the key ambitions of this work is to ensure that all mental health students and registered nurses across Scotland know about the values and principles that have emerged through this process and embed these into their everyday thoughts and practice. Reflections on how best to do this are set out within the papers.

My ambition is to help move away from the old debate about whether or not we should have mental health nurses and what their contribution is to caring for and supporting those with a mental illness. The need and the evidence are clear.

What we need to do now, is set and support the conditions that will allow those who are students and those that are already registered and working in the system, to give the best they can to service users they work with to stay well and to recover quickly. We want to enable individuals to function as independently as possible and indeed where possible to prevent and intervene early, to minimise the negative impact that mental illness can have on a person's ability to function and lead as good a life as possible.

Lastly, I recognise that mental health nurses do not work in isolation of others. We all work in teams. We all have the same ambitions to ensure we give the best care and support we can, but I hope that this review, underscores and reinforces the reasons why mental health nursing in Scotland is so important.

Professor Alex McMahon CBE

Chair of the Mental Health Nursing Review Steering Group