Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government places a high level of importance on providing awareness-raising and suicide prevention training for staff working in frontline public services, to help them identify and support people at risk of mental ill health or suicide. Action 2 of our Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters) sets out our plan to deliver this.

Working with our National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group to deliver the Suicide Prevention Action Plan , the Scottish Government funds Public Health Scotland (PHS) and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to jointly develop and promote freely-available online learning resources on suicide prevention, mental health, and self-harm for the Scottish workforce, including frontline public service workers. These evidence-based learning resources build organisational capability to effectively respond to mental health issues of people using their services, including suicide risk. The resources can be adapted to meet individual organisation’s needs and many public sector organisations, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service, are integrating these resources into their existing staff training programmes.

Additionally, the Scottish Government provides funding to PHS to manage the licences and processes to enable delivery of the face-to-face suicide prevention training programmes safeTALK, and ASIST. This training is available to front line public services, and delivered by accredited third-party trainers Face-to-face training of these courses was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic in line with the licence conditions. However it will recommence in November 2021, with priority access for frontline public service workers.

These programmes and resources complement our wider work under the National Trauma Training Programme, which supports the Scottish Government’s ambition for a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforce across Scotland. The National Trauma Training Programme, led by NHS Education for Scotland, provides a suite of freely available, evidence based, trauma training resources and implementation support to help ensure that our services and care are delivered in ways that prevent further harm or re-traumatisation for children, young people or adults affected by psychological trauma.

The Scottish Government does not routinely monitor how many people in frontline public services access suicide prevention training. In relation to Health Boards, the Scottish Government wrote to all Boards in May 2019 to ask that the requirement for NHS staff to undertake mental health and suicide prevention training (as set out in our Suicide Prevention Action Plan) be included as an essential element of Boards’ Workforce Development Plans with immediate effect. We will continue to engage with Health Boards, and the wider public sector, to design, support and evaluate approaches to the delivery of mental health and suicide prevention training.

We are working with COSLA and stakeholders to develop a new long-term suicide prevention strategy for Scotland. The new strategy will be outcomes-focussed, and its development will be directed by the voices of lived experience. It will be informed by data and evidence, and adopt a cross-government approach to ensure the Government continues to take all actions it can to reduce the number of people who die by suicide. The new strategy will be published in September 2022, supported by an initial delivery plan.

As announced to Parliament in June this year, our continued focus, pace and evaluation on suicide prevention will be achieved by extending activities under the current Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters ), for a further year, up to the point the new strategy is published. This approach has the full backing from partners, including COSLA and the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group.

The Scottish Government does not provide specific funding to local authorities or territorial NHS Boards to carry out suicide prevention training. The Scottish Government provides funding to Public Health Scotland (PHS) to manage the licences and processes to enable delivery of Scottish Mental Health First Aid training and suicide prevention training programmes (safeTALK and ASIST), which are delivered by accredited third-party trainers. This training is available to individuals living in Scotland, including those working in local authorities, NHS boards, third sector organisations and community groups. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, PHS was allocated a total of £400,000, principally for the management of these training programmes as part of its mental health improvement and suicide prevention work programme.

Through work with our National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group to deliver on our Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters) , the Scottish Government funds PHS and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to jointly develop and promote freely-available online learning resources on suicide prevention, mental health, and self-harm for the Scottish workforce. These resources are accessible through the NES online training platform. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, the total allocation to NES and PHS, principally for this work on learning resources, was £495,659.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00245 on 4 June 2021, which highlights the actions delivered in the Suicide Prevention Action Plan (Every Life Matters) . All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

A full update on the delivery of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan will be included in the annual report of the National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group, which is due to be published later this month.

The Scottish Government is working to respond to the health and wellbeing needs of children and young people who are looked after, in light of recovery from the pandemic; and as part of our commitment to Keep the Promise, our continuing response to the recommendations of the Independent Care Review. Our policy framework is subject to continuous improvement and will be updated, if required, as part of this work.

In line with our commitment to implement the conclusions of The Promise, the Scottish Government welcomes input and recommendations from our stakeholders. We will continue to work with stakeholders, including people with care experience, to consider what is currently working well for children and young people who are looked after; and to explore where improvements could be introduced.

The Scottish COVID-19 Mental Health Tracker study provides data on the prevalence of mild to moderate mental health problems. Wave 4 of the Tracker Study is due to be published in the coming weeks.

Alongside other sources, we use the Tracker Study to monitor the mental health and wellbeing of the Scottish population. This provides insight into the potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic, and accompanying restrictions, on the mental health of the Scottish population, and has allowed us to tailor our mental health policy response as needs continue to evolve.

Whilst Covid-19 has change the way the NHS works, the Scottish Government has been clear since the start of the pandemic that NHS remains open and those with health concerns should be able to access the care they need safely and quickly. In a life-threatening emergency, 999 and A&E services will always be available.

A National Door Drop to all households in Scotland in January 2021 - “ A Guide to NHS Scotland Services ” - included information about the different healthcare services the public can seek advice from. This information can be accessed on an ongoing basis on the “ Your Community Health Care Services ” page on NHS Inform. To assist NHS Health Boards with local messaging, the Scottish Government has also produced the Primary Care Digital Communications Toolkit , which provides resources for primary care providers to utilise when communicating with the public on how to access healthcare services.

The South West Scotland Breast Screening Clinic does not accept GP referrals. Patients are referred to the clinic through the national screening programme, therefore this data is not available. The clinic does track the waiting time from initial screening to assessment. In May, the wait to assessment was 100% by week 3.

The breast screening programme is governed by the Breast Screening Programme Board as well as the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Screening Committee. They monitor and evaluate performance, including uptake rates, against a set of standards developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

Since the breast screening programme restarted last summer, additional steps have been taken to ensure uptake of appointments despite the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic. These include:

• breast screening centres contacting participants ahead of their appointments to confirm their intention to attend;
• providing information to reassure people that infection control measures are in place and, during lockdown, that attending a screening appointment was considered essential travel; and
• clearly communicating the importance of screening, along with tailored messaging to recognise additional concerns and challenges caused by the pandemic, for example for people who were shielding.

The Scottish Government recognises that the Covid-19 pandemic may have exacerbated inequalities in screening uptake across all national screening programmes, and we have committed £2 million over the next two years, to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way.