Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government already provides funding of £113,000 per year (2017-2020) to the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) to support the delivery of education to children and young people from travelling cultures. In 2018-19 we awarded STEP additional funding of £275,000 to support and share best practice in delivering education to Gypsy/Traveller families for all ages and stages – from early years to adult learning – and to embed and systematise effective approaches across Scotland.

When we published ‘Every Child, Every Chance: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2018-2022’ we made a commitment to invest £0.5m in flexible family learning with Gypsy/Traveller families over the lifetime of the Plan (2018-2020). This will build on additional funding of £275,000 (2018-20) to STEP to strengthen the delivery of education to children and young people in the Gypsy/Traveller community. This work is underway and – alongside engagement with Gypsy/Traveller communities – will inform how the Child Poverty Delivery Fund money will be spent over the next three years .

Policy officials have started preliminary work to understand the experience of people who are homeless as a result of domestic abuse, alongside a wider piece of work on equalities across the Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan. A number of internal meetings have taken place with teams from across the Scottish Government to understand more about the context, raise awareness, and identify the right external stakeholders to take the work forward. In addition, we are currently considering an appropriate platform to develop a domestic abuse prevention pathway by summer 2020.

Of the cases reported in the outcome category “Not known”, a large proportion are cases where contact has been lost prior to duty discharge. Of the cases reported in S5W-22646, 51% of “not known” outcomes of those with no local connection in 2015-16 had lost contact prior to duty discharge, in 2016-17 this accounted for 64% and in 2017-18 73%.

The Scottish Government is happy to further discuss the “Not known” category with Local Authorities at the next Homelessness Statistics User Group meeting, which is provisionally scheduled for September, to obtain an indication of the feasibility of taking further steps to record and better classify these outcomes where contact has not been lost.

The Scottish Government does not collect further information regarding the “other (known)” outcome category.

We plan to consult with users via the Homelessness Statistics User Group, which has a provisional meeting date of September and will explore whether there are any outcomes which are commonly recorded under the “other (known)” category. If this is the case, such outcomes can be added as additional categories to this question. However, there will always be an “other (known)” category, as it is not feasible to include all possible outcomes within the local authority data collection and published statistics.

Early intervention is defined as the commencement of any necessary treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis. The Scottish Government’s Quality Indicator profile includes a measure of the percentage of first presentation psychosis patients that start SIGN or NICE guideline evidence based treatment within 14 calendar days of referral to specialist mental health services.

The improvement work, as articulated in our Vision, will ensure that people presenting for the first time with psychosis anywhere in Scotland will have timely access to effective care and treatment, with early intervention and a focus on recovery.

People with recurring and long term mental illness require good primary and secondary mental health care and treatment. This is the responsibility of local providers including NHS Boards and HSCPs, and the Scottish Government expects that anyone with recurring psychosis will continue to receive the right treatment at the right time.

Our Vision paper lays the groundwork for a nationwide improvement in EI Psychosis services, and all patients experiencing psychosis (including those with recurring psychosis) will further benefit from this improvement work as it moves forward.

Official published statistics for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) show that for the three year period to 31st March 2019, a total of 16,419 homes for social rent have been delivered. Over the same period, a total of 19,943 homes for social rent have started on site.

The next set of quarterly official statistics on AHSP approvals, site starts and completions to end June 2019 are due to be published in September 2019.

The Scottish Government’s Quality Indicator (QI) profile includes a specific measure (Quality Indicator T5) of the percentage of first presentation psychosis patients starting evidence-based treatment within 2 weeks.

Several of the other QIs are directly relevant in terms of providing better data about the care and treatment of people with recurring and long term mental health conditions, including psychosis. QIs that will provide relevant data include:

• E3 - % people with severe and enduring mental illness and / or learning disability who have had their BMI measured and recorded in the last 12 months. ‎
• E4 - % of people seen for at least 1 month that show improvement in functioning using any clinical outcome measurement over the previous month. ‎
• E5 - % of people seen for at least 1 month that show improvement in symptom severity using any clinical outcome measurement over the previous month. ‎
• Eq5 - % of caseload with an active anticipatory care plan. ‎
• P5 - % of people in mental health services seen for at least 1 month that show improvement in any personal outcome measurement over the previous month.

The QI profile is currently in the process of being rolled out across Scotland. Further information on the QIs can be found here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/mental-health-quality-indicators-background-secondary-definitions/ .

Our commitment to improving Early Intervention Psychosis (EIP) services is reflected in Action 26 of the Mental Health Strategy, as well as in the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce Delivery Plan. The allocation of additional funding reflects that EIP is a policy priority for the Scottish Government, and our Vision to Improve Early Intervention in Psychosis in Scotland provides detail of how these commitments will be taken forward.

The first stage of our two-stage process, as outlined in our Vision, involves an EIP Improvement Network carrying out a national needs assessment, and conducting dedicated improvement work with two NHS Boards. The second phase of the process will be guided by the EIP Improvement Network's recommendations, and will involve the phased implementation of better EIP services and support across Scotland.

More generally, there are powerful arguments for improving EIP services. These are articulated in our Vision paper, including perspectives from people with lived experience. Psychosis can be an acutely serious mental health condition with potentially life-changing consequences. It is therefore vital that we provide the right help for people presenting for the first time with psychosis. There is also a volume of evidence showing that EIP is a highly effective approach, both in terms of clinical outcomes and cost effectiveness.