Veterans Mental Health Pathway Advisory Group minutes: June 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Lynne Taylor (Chair), Principal Psychology Officer, Scottish Government
• Martin Bell, Health and Wellbeing Lead, Veterans Scotland
• David Dent MBE, Vice President (Global Head of Integrated Strategy) Clinical Research, Board Advisor Help for Heroes, Trustee RBLI, Professor (Hon), former Army Nurse, Lecturer RDMC, and CISD practitioner and mental health 1st aider, War Disabled Veteran
• Linda Irvine Fitzpatrick, Strategic Lead, Scotland’s Veterans Wellbeing Alliance
• Kari Magee, Veterans’ Lived Experience Group
• Gerri Matthews-Smith, Director of the Edinburgh Napier University Centre for Military Research, Education and Public Engagement/Scottish Armed Forces Evidence and Research (SAFE&R) HUB
• Michelle Ramage, Veterans Fist Point Tayside Clinical Lead
• Robert Reid, Defence Medical Welfare Service
• Julie Thain-Smith, Head of Clinical Services, Help for Heroes
• Lindsey Restrick, Scottish Government
• Mark Fergusson, Scottish Government

Apologies

• Jacqueline Berry, Allied Health Professionals/Occupational Therapy Lead, NHS Grampian
• Jennifer Borthwick, Director of Psychological Services and Head of Clinical Services, NHS Forth Valley
• Thelma Bowers, Head of Mental health, Addiction and Learning Disability services, NHS Ayrshire and Arran/North Ayrshire HSCP
• Alexis Chappell, Chief Officer, East Renfrewshire Health and Social Care Partnership
• Vicky Henderson, Aberdeenshire HSCP
• Lindsay Kirkwood, V1P Ayrshire and Arran Clinical Lead
• Linda McAuslan, Lead Nurse Psychological Therapies/Adult Psychological Therapies Manager, NHS Forth Valley
• Jenny Pope, Deputy Director of Workforce NHS Golden Jubilee
• Caroline Robertson, Head of Operations for Scotland, Combat Stress
• Tommy Watson, Walking with the Wounded
• Pauline Winchester, Midlothian Local Authority Armed Forces and Veterans Champion

Items and actions

Welcome and recap of March meeting

The chair welcomed everyone to the meeting and asked the group if they were content with the minute of the previous meeting. One member suggested an amendment to Linda Irvine-Fitzpatrick’s job title while the chair suggested an update to her own title. It was agreed that both would be amended.

The chair informed members that, on 12 June, Tom Arthur MSP took over from Maree Todd MSP as the new Minister for Social Care and Mental Wellbeing

The chair informed members that she held a quarterly meeting with the then Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport on 3 June where she informed Ms Todd an updated national framework plan would be reviewed and updated by the group at this meeting.

Update from Scottish Government (SG) on pilot pathway and NHS Lothian   

The chair invited an SG official to provide an update on the pilot pathway.

An SG official stated that Work had been underway to develop a pilot pathway in two health board areas: NHS Dumfries and Galloway; and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. However, SG has had to take the difficult decision not to proceed with this proposed activity at this time.

There are two main factors that have contributed to this situation. Enhanced spending controls within SG have led to challenging delays getting budget approval for the pilot. Additionally, getting measures in place to ensure there is appropriate oversight for the proposed approach was taking longer than anticipated.

The intention of the pilot had been, through financial year 2025/26, to trial the tiered approach. The learning from this was to be evaluated and feed into the development of the approach in the national pathway being taken forward in 2026/27. Given ongoing delays to establish the pilot, it was considered unlikely there would be sufficient time to gather meaningful data this financial year. This has led to the difficult decision not to proceed with this planned activity. Officials will work with partners to concentrate on the approach to be developed in 2026/27.

An SG official also gave an update on NHS Lothian’s specialist mental health care services for veterans. It was confirmed that SG has maintained its NHS budget commitment of £176,325 for NHS Lothian to provide bespoke mental health care services for veterans.  

Although NHS Lothian have taken the decision not to continue with the Veterans 1st Point service, SG officials remain in discussions with colleagues from NHS Lothian about using this funding to support a new specialist mental health service for veterans in the area. NHS Lothian have informed SG they are in the process of redesigning their veterans service. SG will work with NHS Lothian to continue to seek assurances that any new service will continue to provide veterans in the area with access to services and treatment including psychiatric and psychological care; and peer support, where required.

Updates from short-life working groups

The chair provided an overview of the updates from the short-life working groups which were circulated with the papers for the meeting.  Three short-life working groups have been established to look at the following areas:

• the development of performance measures and standards – the group will focus on performance metrics required to assess the effectiveness of the pathway (Chaired by Martin Bell, Health and Wellbeing Lead, Veterans Scotland ; two meetings held so far)
• peer support specification - the group will focus on governance arrangements and training needs. Led by Veterans Link Scotland group (chaired by David Cruickshanks, Peer support worker, Veterans First Point NHS Tayside; three meetings held so far)
• digital hub – the group will focus on the development of a digital hub specification; securing a digital hub developer; and agreeing information sharing protocols (chaired by Lindsay Kirkwood, Clinical Lead, Veterans First Point NHS Ayrshire and Arran and Chris Wright, National Advisor for Digital Mental Health/Head of Programme Digital Mental Health, SG; one meeting held so far)

National framework review

The chair invited comment from the group on the latest draft of the national framework. The plan was updated in real time with all sections reviewed. It was agreed that a separate meeting would be held with group members who had volunteered to help reorder the sections and redraft section ten on the referral process.

Action: SG officials to arrange meeting with volunteers to reorder the paper and redraft content in section ten.

Any other business

The chair stated that a separate meeting will be offered to group members unable to attend this meeting to summarise agreed changes to national framework.

Action: SG officials to arrange meeting with absent group members.