Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the lives of people with learning disabilities, their families and carers through the implementation of The keys to life in Scotland. The focus of the keys to life strategy is to reduce the significant health and social inequalities faced by people who have learning disabilities. Specifically the strategy aims to reduce the significant health inequalities and early mortality of the population.

People with learning disabilities are supported by a wide range of multi disciplinary health and social care professionals in the community.

In addition to the full service of primary care offering treatments there are also further levels of specialist care such as community dentistry for those who require a more protected environment. Other specialist services include a range of clinical provisions from the community learning disability specialist teams which provide nursing, speech and language therapy, psychology, psychological therapies, psychiatry, occupational and physiotherapy services.

Other initiatives aim to address new challenges facing learning disability services such as dementia services as the learning disability population is now mainly older than previously experienced by health and social care services.

The information is not held centrally.

The planning and provision of local healthcare services are matters for individual NHS boards. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde advise that, to improve patient flows during peak activity, there are additional beds available across all maternity hospitals that can be accessed immediately to meet demand. The health board has been clear that having urology patients in the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital has not reduced their ability to open additional beds on the obstetric floors where required.

In February 2015 the Scottish Government announced plans to review our maternity and neonatal services to make sure that Scotland has the right services in place to continue to deliver and indeed enhance the excellent care provided. As part of this process we will be engaging with maternity staff and service users about what matters to them.

All health boards, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, are responsible for ensuring that they have sufficient capacity in place to meet the needs of local people and they have provided assurances that this is the case. The decision about discharge for new mothers and their babies should be made in partnership between the woman and her care providers. Midwives are accountable for any decisions they make in relation to women under their care and we would expect them place the needs of the family front and centre in their decision making. The health board has provided further assurance that local mothers and their babies are only discharged when it is appropriate to do so, as informed by their needs.

See Me is Scotland’s national campaign to end mental health stigma and discrimination. The Scottish Government provides £1 million per year in addition to £0.5 million from Comic Relief to support the See Me programme. See Me workplace is part of the See Me anti stigma work to support the reduction of stigma and raise awareness in the workplace for people entering and retaining work in Scotland. See Me has recently launched a work programme which takes organisations through four specific steps from commitment and awareness through to practice transformation and becoming a See Me work partner: https://www.seemescotland.org/workplace/see-me-in-work/

Fit for Work Scotland is a service recently established on a phased basis from December 2014, funded through the Department for Work and Pensions and delivered in Scotland by the Scottish Government. The service provides support for people in work to remain at work, or return to work following periods of long term sickness absence. It provides assessment and advice for employers and employees around interventions and actions which could facilitate a return to work. This service is not specifically for mental health and wellbeing, but incorporates it:

http://www.FitforWorkScotland.scot

The Scottish Government provides funding to NHS Health Scotland to deliver Healthy Working Lives Scotland service. This is a comprehensive service offering advice and support to employers and their employees around health, safety and wellbeing. This is facilitated through advice lines and award schemes. The award schemes are from bronze to gold and the silver award specifically states the need to “Provide managers and supervisors with training to increase their knowledge and understanding of mental health, wellbeing and stress in the workplace. Ensure managers are aware of their responsibilities in relation to employee support.” (http://www.healthyworkinglives.com/)

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-26605 on 3 August 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The number of (a) talking therapies and (b) drug therapies prescribed by GPs for mental health patients is held by individual GP practices and is not provided to the Scottish Government as a matter of course.

The latest published data on the dispensing of mental health drugs by NHSScotland is available from the Information Services Division (ISD) report Medicines for Mental Health, published 30 September 2014.

The ISD report on Medicines for Mental Health is available online at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Prescribing-and-Medicines/Publications/2014-09-30/2014-09-30-PrescribingMentalHealth-Report.pdf

This report covers the period 2004-05 to 2013-14 and five main categories of medicines for the treatment of mental health problems are covered within this publication: hypnotics and anxiolytics, antipsychotics and related drugs, antidepressants, drugs used for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and drugs for dementia.

<>Details including the remit and copies of previous minutes for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Implementation Monitoring and Support Group can be found at the following link:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Health/Services/Mental-Health/Strategy/Child-Adolescent-Services

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Statistics on sickness absence rates for local authority employees are published by the improvement service:

http://www.improvementservice.org.uk/benchmarking/tool.html.

The Scottish Stakeholder Group on Child Internet Safety provides expert advice to the government so agenda’s and minutes are stored centrally. Although there have been no specific discussions around the impact of social media on people at risk of eating disorders, it is vital that we educate our children and young people about responsible use of social networking sites and that they do not stay quiet if someone or something makes them feel uncomfortable online. The Scottish Government is working with partners, mainly through schools, to raise awareness of online safety around social networking sites.