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Mental health is an absolute priority for this government and we have already increased mental health spending by 40% between 2006-07 and
2015-16.

Our mental health law is based on rights and principles and offers protection for patients where compulsory treatment is necessary. Any increase in compulsory treatments may represent the effects of more people coming forward for treatment and increased awareness and response to mental ill health. It’s also important to note that the largest proportion of people subject to compulsion are for short term orders rather than long term orders. We will continue to work with the Mental Welfare Commission and stakeholders both to ensure these orders are correctly used and to promote patients rights more generally. Patient rights are a key part of our legislation and the new Mental Health Strategy.

The Scottish Government is considering how best to use data in mental health and this includes the important information which the Mental Welfare Commission provide about the use of compulsion.

Curriculum for Excellence is the national approach to learning and teaching for young people aged 3 to 18 in Scotland. It provides significant flexibility, within broad national guidelines, for teachers to develop lessons which best meet the needs of individual learners. Teachers, head teachers and other professional educational practitioners are best placed to decide what is taught in Scotland’s schools. Schools are encouraged to focus on the individual interests of classes and pupils to make lessons more relevant and therefore more rewarding.

‘Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) Education in Schools’ provides guidance for teachers on the conduct of teaching RSHP education within the health and wellbeing organiser of Curriculum for Excellence. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the school curriculum in Scotland. The curriculum is not statutory and it is for local authorities and schools to decide how to deliver the curriculum based on local needs and circumstances. However, we are specific about the need for children and young people to gain knowledge appropriate to their age and stage of education. This aspect of the curriculum is intended to enable children and young people to build positive and safe relationships as they grow older and should present facts in an objective, balanced and sensitive manner within a framework of sound values and an awareness of the law.

Scottish Government intends to publish the findings of the audit of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) rejected referrals within 12 months. Preliminary work has now taken place and the audit will commence shortly. This will consist of two parts, quantitative analysis by NHS Information Services Division and qualitative data from parents, carers and young people gathered in partnership with the third sector. The timeframe of the audit will mirror the planned Audit Scotland CAMHS audit to ensure coordination of activity.

Information on how many under 16 and 16 to 18 year-olds diagnosed with a mental and physical health condition admitted to an adult/non-adult inpatient ward is not held centrally. It is not possible to distinguish between an adult and a non-adult inpatient ward from the information received from NHS Boards.

The Mental Welfare Commission publishes an annual report showing the number of young people under the age of 18 who were admitted to non-specialist mental health beds http://www.mwcscot.org.uk/publications/statistical-monitoring-reports/. This includes where children and young people have been admitted to a non-mental health paediatric ward for mental health reasons, but the report does not cover physical health admissions. In 2015-16 (the latest year for which data is published) the number had decreased compared to previous years.

There are some reasons why it may not always be possible for a young person to be admitted to a specialist child and adolescent bed – for example, a crisis admission out of hours where there are concerns for the young person’s safety, or where a specialist facility might be a considerable distance from family support that could help recovery.

Most of these admissions are among young people aged 16 or 17 where an adult facility might in certain cases be clinically judged to be the more appropriate setting, but nevertheless it is expected that almost all children and young people admitted to adult wards be discharged quickly or transferred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

This Government has committed to and is undertaking a review to consider whether the provisions of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 fulfil the needs of people with Learning Disability and Autism.

The work to lay the foundations of the review are complete and I am hopeful that a formal announcement regarding the appointment of a Chairperson will be made shortly, with the work commencing before the end of October.

We have been clear from the outset that we do not wish to place an artificial timeline on the review. In order to deliver an inclusive and credible review there is a need to ensure that all perspectives are covered equally therefore evidence will need to be gathered from a wide range of sources. It will have to get to the heart of differing opinions so that the real issues can be fleshed out and then considered on an evidence led basis. The Chairperson will therefore determine a realistic timeline however we expect a duration for gathering evidence, consultation and writing of around 2 years.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the local team at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) to support improvements.

While performance at the QEUH over the summer months (June and July) improved to over 90%, performance against the four hour A&E target over the last few weeks has dipped. There have been a number of issues impacting on performance at the QEUH including the level of attendances; with the exception of May 2017, August saw the highest level of attendances since the hospital opened in 2015. This high level of attendances has been consistent throughout September - despite this no patients have been delayed over twelve hours.

My officials are in regular contact with the senior Executive Team at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and have had a number of discussions around actions in place to support improved performance. The national team are on site working with the local team to strengthen the principles of the unscheduled care six essential actions and support the specific actions that have been put in place, including:

• Opening additional capacity

• Additional staffing in place in the A&E department at peak times

• Focused approach to maximising appropriate daily discharges to create capacity throughout the day

• Golden hour on all medical wards to support early discharges

We will continue to work with the Board and monitor improvements over the coming weeks.

Mental Health is a priority for this Government. In 2017-18, for the first time, NHS investment in mental health will exceed £1 billion, and we are working with Boards to deliver sustained improvements.

Under this Government, the number of psychiatric specialists working in NHSScotland have increased by 24.5% to 553.4 Whole Time Equivalent.*

Despite these increases in staff and funding, we recognise that we must adapt to meet the changing needs of the people of Scotland as demand rises in the years ahead.

In June 2017 we published Part 1 of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan, which will strengthen and harmonise workforce planning practice, take full account of the future demand for safe and high quality services for Scotland’s people and work to accurately identify gaps in supply, including within the psychiatric workforce.

Parts 2 and 3 of the Plan, to be published later in 2017, will examine how to improve integrated workforce planning in social care and primary care settings. These important steps will enable different health and social care systems to move together towards publication of a second full Health and Social Care Workforce Plan in 2018 and beyond.

*Source: ISD Scotland. Includes Consultant-Grade Directors.

In Scotland the number of people with a diagnosis of dementia and the number of people dying of dementia has risen as our population ages, and the rates of diagnosis have improved, partly due to our former national diagnosis target and a greater awareness of getting a timely diagnosis. The Scottish Government commissioned a report last year which assessed, for the first time, estimated and projected annual diagnosed incidence for dementia rising to 20,000 by 2020. More people who would previously have died from heart disease or cancer but who now live into old age and very old age are now more likely to die from dementia.

Scotland is not alone in experiencing a considerable rise in dementia-related deaths in recent years. In addition, part of the increase is attributable to the introduction by The National Records of Scotland (NRS) of new software to code deaths and adoption of a more recent World Health Organisation (WHO) update to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). This has resulted in some deaths previously assigned to respiratory causes being allocated to dementia. This development brings Scotland into line with Official National Statistics (ONS), therefore making our mortality figures more comparable with those for England and Wales and further afield.

The Scottish Government published a third three year National Dementia Strategy in June, including an enhanced focus on palliative and end of life care. The strategy builds on our progress over the last ten years in transforming services and improving outcomes for people with dementia, their families and carers. It sets out 21 commitments and provides a framework for further action to ensure the realisation of our shared vision for people with dementia and their carers.

When the Scottish Strategy for Autism was published in November 2011, the then Minister for Public Health backed a programme of activity with £13.4 million. This has broadly been committed to a Development Fund which has made between £1m to £1.5m available per annum to a number of local third sector, LAs and NHS Boards who have been funded to develop autism services. Last year we commissioned Inspiring Scotland to work with the third sector projects in the fund and progress reports on the fund can be found at:http://www.autismstrategyscotland.org.uk/strategy/key-documents.html

£1.12m was committed in the financial year 2012/13 of which £35,000 was issued to each local authority to support the development of local autism strategies and associated action plans.

Since 2012 £5.025 has been spent on the development of One Stop shops in six locations throughout Scotland.

A full breakdown of the autism strategy spend will be published when the new outcomes approach is published in the coming months.