Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s £50 million Wellbeing Fund is supporting third sector organisations that have expanded their work to provide vital assistance for communities at risk in the face of Covid-19. Among the 558 organisations recently offered funding in the first application round for Wellbeing Fund support are 344 for which applicants identified “Mental Health and Wellbeing” as the primary area of focus and which collectively received £8.07 million. Provisional results from the second application round show that 392 applications have been approved for funding, with a total value of £7,592,000. More detailed breakdown information about these (including how many focus on mental health and wellbeing) will become available shortly.

On 12 May we extended eligibility for the Small Business Grant Fund (£10,000) to include non-domestic properties in receipt of any Charitable or Sports Rates Relief, and eligible for Small Business Bonus Scheme who also meet the qualifying criteria.

Through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund, the Scottish Government is continuing to contribute to the core costs of Third Sector organisations which support the emotional wellbeing of children, young people and families.

In addition to a number of third sector partners funded to help deliver our vision for improved mental health and wellbeing in Scotland, we have announced additional support this year to the following third sector organisations responding directly to the increased demand resulting from the Covid-19 crisis:

• As part of the £1 million to expand and develop the Distress Brief Intervention programme into a nationwide response to people in distress associated with Covid-19, support to third sector bodies including the Scottish Association for Mental Health, Penumbra and Support in Mind Scotland as key partners will be over £800,000.
• We announced a £1 million package for children, young people and families on 1 May which includes:

- £768,000 for a relationships helpline to be delivered by The Spark counselling service

- £105,000 to support Young Scot to develop enhanced digital content and resources on mental health

- £205,000 to support 47,000 autistic people across Scotland. This consists of funding to increase capacity at the Scottish Autism Helpline, and help for the National Autistic Society to keep people in touch online during lockdown.

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide this data at this time.

In response to part a) Information on deaths by suicide are published yearly by National Records Scotland (NRS), usually in June for the previous calendar year. The report for 2019 has been delayed as NRS has not received some of the information it relies on to categorise these deaths. It is not possible to produce reliable statistics without this information. In relation to deaths by suicide in 2020, usually this data would not be available as official statistics until June 2021. However, officials are looking at ways to extract reliable data from other sources quicker to inform local and national suicide prevention in Scotland.

In response to part b) the term attempted suicide is not used when collating data as self harming behaviour can have a range of purposes and intents. A table presenting the number of patients admitted to acute and psychiatric hospitals in Scotland with a diagnosis of self-harm in the period 2007 – 2019 (up to and including September 2019), broken down by hospital and year of admission has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 61455).

I am working closely with partners across the health and social care sector, including NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and local employers, to ensure mental health and wellbeing support is in place for the workforce.

A range of support services has been established at local level, including staff wellbeing ‘hubs’, common rooms and rest areas, helplines and listening services, links with Occupational Health and Chaplaincy services, peer support, leadership development and coaching initiatives, mental health guidance and digital offerings. We have encouraged the sharing of services across health and social care to ensure as many people as possible can benefit from these.

On 11 th May, we launched the National Wellbeing Hub for health and social care workers (www.promis.scot). The Hub signposts staff, unpaid carers, volunteers and their families to relevant services, and provides a range of self-care and wellbeing resources designed to support the workforce as they respond to the impact of Covid-19. The Hub is part of a programme of activity at the national level which includes the allocation of a further £3.8 million to begin to increase the capacity of NHS 24’s Mental Health Hub and Breathing Space service, alongside increased access to digital therapies.

Based on evidence and experiences here and internationally, we will continue to explore how best to respond to those who need more specialist mental health support and care over the coming months.

Scottish Water has made no request for additional borrowing. Scottish Ministers will continue to monitor the impacts of COVID-19 on Scottish Water and its customers.

The impacts of COVID-19 on Scottish Water are being closely monitored. As set out in its budget the Scottish Government will lend Scottish Water £215 million during 2020-21. Scottish Water has made no request for additional borrowing in light of the pandemic.

The Scottish Ambulance Service has received additional funding of £9.8 million so far to support prioritisation of the Board’s response to Covid-19 and to meet initial costs incurred.

The Scottish Government will continue its close engagement with all NHS Boards to ensure that they have the resources needed throughout this pandemic and to ensure that patient safety remains the top priority.

(a) 10 care homes were issued with improvement notices under section 62 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 in 2019.

(b) No care homes had conditions applied to their registration in 2019.

(c) 1 service had its registration cancelled by means of a section 65 (Emergency cancellation) notice in 2019.

The use of contact tracing in a pandemic situation is addressed in the UK Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Strategy 2011:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/
system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf

Our mental health policy response to the pandemic will remain fluid and adaptable and will be led emerging evidence as it becomes available. The Mental Health Research Advisory Group has been established to follow research developments to understand the medium and long term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health and will help us to put evidence-based services and support in place to help meet the mental health needs of the population.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Scottish Government has introduced a number of new mental health supports and services, as well as extending existing services. Many of these will remain relevant and helpful in the event of a second wave of coronavirus.

The “Clear Your Head” campaign will continue to help the population look after their own mental health and wellbeing during the Covid-19 outbreak and could be adapted to support people through a second wave.

Support services including the NHS 24 Mental Health Hub, Breathing Space and Distress Brief Intervention Programme will remain available throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. NHS Mental Health services will also remain open and available for specialist mental health treatment for those who need it.

We will also continue to provide mental health and wellbeing support to the health and social care workforce.

All care homes in Scotland are registered with the Care Inspectorate and these providers are required to notify the Care Inspectorate of a suspected or known outbreak of infection. This includes each individual case of COVID-19. The Care Inspectorate shares data on outbreak and deaths notification with Scottish Government daily. There are currently 1082 care homes in Scotland, of which 267 are classified as catering for vulnerable adults who are neither elderly nor have dementia. Of those, 75 care homes have notified the Care Inspectorate that there have been COVID-19 outbreaks on their premises.

That information is broken down as follows:

Care Home subtypes registered with the Care Inspectorate: