It is extremely welcome that things are opening up again and it is particularly helpful that the schools are back—long may that continue. However, there is now a risk as we go into the winter and flu season. We simply do not know what will happen with the pandemic, but we know that it will have an impact on mental health across the community and on the ability of professionals to respond to that.
I will talk through the data that I provided to the committee. There are just a few slides, and I will explain what they mean. The first slide shows the use of emergency detention certificates. Each record represents a very difficult moment for the person who has been detained under an emergency detention certificate. The rolling data from March 2018 to July 2020 shows that things are relatively stable. The lowest point comes around April 2020 and probably represents lockdown and the fact that people were not presenting. Then there is a marked spike, with the curve going sharply upwards. That reflects what is happening now.
To put some numbers on that, in the final three weeks of July this year there were 221 emergency detention certificates. That figure was 154 in 2018 and 174 in 2019, which shows that demand has gone up. As John Crichton said, that probably reflects people seeking help after lockdown or becoming quite unwell. When the furlough scheme comes to an end in October, that may have a further impact on the population’s mental health and on the number of people who are seriously unwell. That curve may rise still further. The projections suggest that there will be significant pressures. The slide below that gives the same data on a monthly basis.
The third slide looks at an important safeguard around emergency detention certificates. That is the need for the independent consent of a mental health officer, who would be a social worker who has particular training in mental health. What we can see here is how many of those emergency detention certificates are granted with the consent of an MHO. It would always be best practice to make sure that an MHO is consulted and gives consent.
I know that those watching the meeting cannot see the slides, but I hope that the preliminary evidence can be made available later on the committee’s website. The orange and blue lines on the slide tend to intersect, until we reach the last couple of months when there is a sharp increase in the number of emergency detention certificates granted without mental health officer consent.
That echoes points made by Bob Leslie and Lindsey Young about the significant demands on mental health officers as the situation opens up and as guardianships open up. Lindsey said that the number of mental health officers has always been low. There is now a significant demand for MHOs.
The final slide looks at short-term detention certificates. It shows that fewer short-term detention certificates were granted in March and April of this year than in previous years. Suddenly, in May, June and July, there is a higher number than in previous years. That again reflects an increased demand. That is the tip of an iceberg. It gives data about people who were so unwell that they required support, care and treatment in hospital. It gives a sense of the pressures on mental health across Scotland’s population.