Question reference: S6W-24803
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
- Date lodged: 25 January 2024
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Current status: Answered by Maree Todd on 6 February 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many mental health first aiders (a) have been trained in each of the last five years and (b) are currently being trained; how many people are currently employed to train mental health first aiders, and how much money it (i) has spent in each of the last five years and (ii) is currently spending on training mental health first aiders.
Answer
The following table shows the number of participants undertaking Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training over the last 5 years, including numbers to date in 2024, based on the latest available data, as well as the total number of MHFA trainers (active and inactive) since 2020 to date.
1 April – | Number of people who have participated in the SMHFA programme | Number of trainers (active and inactive)* | Number of active Trainers |
2019-2020 | 7906
| Data not available** | 176 |
2020-2021 | 443 | 290 | 167 |
2021-2022 | 828*** | 290 | 167 |
2022-2023 | 5133 | 324 | 201 (34 new trainers) |
2023-2024 | 4604**** | 324 | 201 |
TABLE NOTES :-
*total number of trainers who have completed the programme to become a trainer. Active trainers have completed the required number of training sessions in each year and have completed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements. Inactive trainers might not have delivered the required training sessions or completed GDPR compliance
**work was undertaken during period to review all trainer accounts
***programme restarted course in November 2021 following a programme break due to COVID
**** up to January 2024
The following table shows the total spend on MHFA over the last 5 complete financial year.
This includes spend which is allocated by the Scottish Government to Public Health Scotland for this purpose and does not cover any training fees charged to participants by independent trainers to deliver the MHFA programme. Actual spend data is not available yet for the whole of financial year 2023-24, so an estimated figure is provided.
Financial Year | Amount |
2023-2024 | £43526 (estimated) |
2022-2023 | £42014 |
2021-2022 | £59740 |
2020-2021 | £28350 |
2019-2020 | £49000 |