Chamber and committees

The Scottish Patient Safety Programme-Mental Health (SPSP-MH) has seen a successful Phase 1 with broad engagement and some excellent pieces of work which show considerable promise in making mental health services in Scotland safer for patients. Phase 2 of SPSP-MH is now underway and all NHS Boards with inpatient units are involved and it is anticipated that over 60% of eligible wards will be participating by September 2014. NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland are also actively engaged. Examples of work to date have included routine debrief for patients, staff and those who witness restraint, management and monitoring of as required psychotropic medication, reducing time it takes to complete risk assessments on admission and the inclusion of safety briefs. During Phase 2 of the programme, all boards are being asked to use the patient safety climate Tool to ask patients what they feel about the safety of the wards they are in. This partnership initiative involves service users and carers, NHS boards and the voluntary sector. This survey will help individual wards, units and NHS boards to find out what needs to be changed and what is working well, with anticipated shared learning across the country.

NHS Health Scotland have been distributing the Steps for Stress resource and keeping the website up to date. The Scottish Government, with NHS Health Scotland, have identified challenges in tracking where Steps for Stress resources are going to and how effective they are in being an early intervention for people with common mental health problems.

NHS Health Scotland has set up a short term working group with representatives from NHS, local authority and voluntary sector. This group is currently looking at issues relating to the distribution, use, effectiveness and measurement of staff confidence in using Steps for Stress. The working group will plan and seek to test out methodologies for future data collection, collation and analysis.

As a first test of data collection, NHS Grampian has agreed to audit Steps for Stress usage via their resources service and to complete a survey, which will gauge how the resource is being presented to patients, what level of confidence staff have in using the resource, awareness of the resource, and where else it could be made available. This data is likely to available during March 2014.

The Mental Health Strategy sets out activity that will be delivered during the period 2012-15. Implementation of commitments is planned to take place across this period, with some already completed, some underway, and others being delivered later in the strategy’s timescale.

The Scottish Government is aware that people may use alcohol as a means of coping when they are in distress or depressed. Discussions have been held with specialist services, Royal College of General Practitioners and primary care partners. These discussions have highlighted the need to develop robust methods of collecting and reporting data which can demonstrate that people are being asked about both alcohol and common mental health problems, and that they are being responded to appropriately.

Different methods of collecting this data are being developed and piloted by partners This workstream runs alongside the current alcohol brief interventions Standard work:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications-2013-06-25/2013-06-25-ABI-Report.pdf) for problem drinking.

The outputs from this stream of work will be linked to the Scottish Government 2013-2016 Suicide Prevention Strategy which identifies distress, depression and alcohol use as contributing factors to the complex picture of suicide in Scotland.

NHS Education Scotland (NES) are providing and evaluating e-learning modules to staff working in both primary care and mental health services to improve treatment options

The Implementation and Monitoring Group will review these projects and provide strategic direction and support.

The Mental Health Strategy sets out activity that will be delivered during the period 2012-2015. Implementation of commitments is planned to take place across this period, with some already completed, some underway, and others being delivered later in the strategy’s timescale.

Initial developments, led by a consultant psychiatrist from NHS Lothian, is underway and includes:

Developing advice on mainstreaming models of treatment of ADHD within general adult mental health services;

Drawing on professional and academic networks to identify opportunities to educate and inform wider workforce of service needs of people with developmental disorders, including ADHD;

Developing advice on current best practice for prescribing for people with ADHD;

Aligning this work with Autism Strategy to improve diagnosis, intervention and support to people with ASD in mainstream mental health services;

Developing advice on training requirements for NHS staff to achieve the above and contribute to development and delivery of training via contacts with NES;

Exploring links with Criminal Justice to improve support for people with developmental disorders such as ADHD presenting in crisis and who go on to offend;

Developing collaboration with the voluntary sector to assist in development of peer support for people with developmental disorders presenting in adult mental health services.

The Mental Health Strategy sets out activity that will be delivered during the period 2012-15. Implementation of commitments is planned to take place across this period, with some already completed, some underway, and others being delivered later in the strategy’s timescale.

NHS 24 participated on behalf of Scotland, in a joint bid for the European Commission ICT PSP seventh call for proposals in 2013. A bid was submitted for the ‘Management of Mental Health Disorders Through Advanced technology and Services-Telehealth for the MIND’ project (MASTERMIND).

Mastermind is a project which explores the barriers and facilitators to roll-out computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It looks at the sharing of learning and identification of the factors and best practice required in different cultural and healthcare structures, to replicate this type of intervention more widely in the EU. In this project there are 9 European member states and 14 sites participating.

Funding has been approved for the project and is being finalised. The total value of the project in Scotland is £790,243 of which £395,122 will be funded by the European Commission.

The project will run for a duration of three years, staring in March 2014.

NHS Health Education Scotland are rolling out training in the Solihull Approach. Phase 1 which is due to complete in March 2014 will see 60 Health visitors being trained and with 12 train the trainers training being delivered simultaneously.

Phase 2 of the programme which will take place between April 2104 and March 2015 will see a further 24 trainers being trained giving a total of 36 trainers who will be able to deliver training and support to an estimated 360 cross sectorial staff working in early years on an annual basis.

The national standard for monitoring the physical health of people treated with clozapine was published on 12 July 2013. The standards and covering letter from the Chief Medical Officer are available at:

http://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/cmo/CMO(2013)12.pdf

The document defines minimum standards for physical health monitoring, in addition to manufacturer’s protocols, that should be applied to patients taking clozapine in Scotland.

The Mental Health Strategy sets out activity that will be delivered during the period 2012-15. Implementation of commitments is planned to take place across this period, with some already completed, some underway, and others being delivered later in the strategy’s timescale.

Following careful consideration about the use of the consequential funding arising from the UK Government’s autumn statement on 5 December 2013, on 7 January 2014 the First Minister announced his plans to extend the entitlement of free school meals to children in primary 1 to 3 from January 2015.

The Scottish Government recognises that it will take some time to implement the extended entitlement on the ground. Lead in time was identified as an important concern by local authorities in the evaluation of the primary 1 to 3 free school meal trial which was published in 2008 and can be accessed at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2008/08/29114033/0.

The Scottish Government will work closely with COSLA over the next year to explore how any practical implications might be addressed.

A 12 month lead in time is the same length that the UK Government is allowing to put in place the necessary arrangements for implementation of their commitments around free school meal provision in September 2014.

The impact of ADHD on the learning of individual pupils is complex and specific and varies from pupil to pupil. Therefore we do not collect that information centrally. However, as part of education authorities duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. Education authorities will identify, make provision for and review the needs of their pupils, including those with ADHD.

The Scottish Government collects and publishes national statistics each year on the additional support needs of pupils recorded by education authorities. This includes information on the location of pupils with additional support needs. These statistics are available from:http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/12/4199/0 and: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/dspupcensus/pupcensus2013. Within these statistics it is likely that ADHD will be recorded by authorities under the broader category of social and emotional behavioural difficulties.