Lessons to be learned as we shape new mental health services - Irene Oldfather

One thing that the pandemic illustrated is how loneliness and isolation can impact on mental health, and many people for the first time experienced or witnessed this personally.

The renewed focus on mental health has given rise to significant work on how we ensure people with mental health problems receive the support that they need, when they need it. Now is a good time to consider how we can apply lessons from the pandemic and implement upstream, preventative care, while also ensuring that people in crisis get the more urgent help that they need.

As part of its broader Mental Health Strategy to 2027, the Scottish Government Mental Health Directorate is developing new quality standards to ensure improvement in experiences of adult secondary mental health care, at a national level. These proposed quality standards for adult secondary mental health services have now been shared for public consultation, and it’s so important that people engage with this process to make sure that these standards fully meet their needs if and when they need them most.

To inform these standards, the ALLIANCE and VOX Scotland conducted new research into peoples’ experience of mental health services in Scotland, ensuring that the voice of people with lived experience, their families and unpaid carers are centred within standards development. Our report, “Shaping New Mental Health Standards – A lived experience perspective”, shares what really matters to people in shaping, accessing and receiving this care.

Irene Oldfather is Director at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) and was formerly a Member of the Scottish Parliament.

Throughout our engagement, we asked people to consider a couple of things. Firstly, what mattered to them? What was important to them and to their families in accessing mental health services and ensuring that standards were in place in the future? And secondly, what would they change? What would they like to see different? What barriers and challenges did they encounter?

We identified five key areas people would like to see change in Scotland’s mental health services. People want accessing care to be easier, whether they are seeking support for the first time or re-entering the system. They want the information on the range of available support to be improved, to make the system easier to understand. They want better consistency of care and treatment, whether you’re accessing support in the Highlands or the central belt. They want improved communication between services themselves, and communication between professionals and patients. And finally, they want to be treated as equal partners in their own care and support, being involved in their care and support plan and decision making, and above all, treated with kindness and dignity at all times.

It has been a privilege to create an open and understanding space for people with lived experience to share their stories and advocate for positive change in mental health services, and we’re so grateful to those who gave their time to do so.

Now is the time to learn the lessons, listen to what matters to people, and make a meaningful change for the future. The priorities of people who use these services must be central to that change, to ensure that people no longer feel alone in managing their mental health, and to let them know that support is out there and available if they need it. People must remain at the heart of what we do.

Irene Oldfather is Director at the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE)