Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Pathway – National Framework

2. Executive Summary

This National Framework for Veterans’ Mental Health sets out our expectations for service delivery. It aims to ensure that veterans in Scotland can access the right support for their mental health and wellbeing from the right person, at the right time.

Our vision is to create an environment where every veteran in Scotland can access timely, appropriate mental health and wellbeing support. This commitment is grounded in the core values of veterans-informed care, community, and camaraderie.

By improving accessibility to services for all veterans, we will ensure that each individual will receive the most appropriate type of support for them. With easier and more consistent accessibility, we will support more veterans seeking help, and ensure that support is provided sooner, than is currently the case.

This Framework acts as a “road map”, outlining an accessible pathway for veterans to access mental health and wellbeing support. It is intended to be relevant for everyone who has a role to play in creating and maintaining good mental health and wellbeing for veterans living in Scotland.

The support provided to each veteran should be underpinned by our three core values of providing care, community and camaraderie.

It should also be trauma-informed, person‑centered, high quality, timely, equitable, and locally relevant.

The Framework is the first of a suite of documents that will define outcomes, standards and responsibilities across national, regional and local levels. Taken together, these will describe our national Pathway, which will ensure that veteran‑informed mental health support is available wherever a veteran lives.

When developing this Framework, we have taken an integrated and collaborative approach. This has involved representation from the veteran community, NHS Scotland, third-sector organisations, and other relevant Government portfolios.

The resultant Framework sets out the principles of nationally consistent services for our veterans, while retaining all of the advantages of local operational delivery and local expertise.