SCOTLAND’S leading mental health organisations have come together to demand sweeping changes to meet the mental health needs of Scots.
Scotland’s Mental Health Partnership, a coalition of 17 organisations, is calling for a substantial increase in mental health and wellbeing funding.
It comes as Scottish Government statistics revealed that 28.8% of Scots felt high levels of psychological stress. The second Scottish Covid-19 Mental Health Tracker Study report, released on February 14, 2021, also revealed that suicidal thinking had been reported by 13.3% of respondents compared to 9.6% in the initial report from October 2020.
The partnership is urging the next Scottish Government to invest in an approach that will promote better mental health for the whole population, prevent mental ill-health in communities at highest risk, and provide an appropriate choice of support, care and treatment for people experiencing severe mental ill health.
Covering mental health services, community-based support and prevention initiatives, and the promotion of better wellbeing for everyone, the ambitious proposals for change are driven by the needs of people living with, and at risk of, mental ill health.
Angela McCrimmon, 43, from Livingston, said that if there was more promotion around mental health it would have made a huge difference in her life.
She said: “Everyone has mental health and it’s important to be able to pay attention to it before there’s a problem. If people around me had a better understanding it would have meant the fact I was struggling could have been identified sooner. When you look back, there were a lot of red flags.
“My friends accept me the way I am. But there was a significant period of misunderstanding and stigma from professionals and that was horrific. I was put into hospital, for instance, which would never have been a place of choice for me.”
McCrimmon says prevention and getting early help and support, free from stigma and discrimination, is key to recovery. She said: “For me, if they had prevented the crisis rather than waited for it, it would have avoided so much agony for everyone. For years I needed someone to catch me so I wouldn’t get to crisis. Where I would have otherwise have needed one service, I needed six instead.
“The longer you’re not in recovery, the harder it is to get there. The longer it goes on for you, the more you can lose the belief in yourself and don’t believe recovery is possible.
“Self-help keeps recovery at the forefront of the mind, but it’s a long process and it’s about recovery – not being recovered.
“The key point, though, was that I didn’t have to be ill all the time, and that I’m not the illness.”
Lee Knifton, chair of Scotland’s Mental Health Partnership, said: “Mental Health must be a key issue in this year’s Holyrood election.
“Our mental health sector has the ability to become world-leading. Our government must match this expertise with a commitment to investing and supporting an overhaul of the prevention, support and treatment of mental ill health and adopt a mental health in all policies approach.
“This is the time to be ambitious. Bold action now will help us to build a post-Covid Scotland where good mental health and wellbeing are enjoyed by all.”
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