Missing mental health workers are a warning

The Herald reports today that one in seven senior mental health roles in the country do not have a permanent member of staff in place and are either being filled with temporary locums or are vacant entirely. 85 consultant psychiatrist roles out of around 600 are unfilled or filled only by locums.

This should be a substantial concern for parties in the run-up to the election. Mental health has long been stigmatised or underinvested compared to physical health, and we are in a period of growing awareness of mental health issues, leading more people to seek and get diagnoses that were previously missed. This step is critical. Without a diagnosis, which even in the best of times can only come after close, specialised and complex referrals and assessments, it is not possible to even think about getting appropriate help and support.

This, of course, assumes that the patient in question can see that specialist in the first place. Many who are current on waiting lists for mental health assessments are merely told that they will be seen in due course, with no indication of whether they may be waiting weeks, months or even years.

There’s no single or simple answer to the problem of filling these vacant roles, though staff retention will not be helped by placing the burden of work on those who remain.

One aspect that Common Weal has discussed, however, is the need for a National Care Service and particularly one that is based and delivered locally. Every community should have a Care Hub in the same way that we expect to have one or more GPs. This care hub would operate in a similar triage and referral system that could identify care needs that sit alongside and beyond the health needs identified by your GP and would help to assign and manage the services you need. Care is not just about the care needs of frail, elderly people or children living in difficult circumstances, but it can also be about providing support to anyone who needs it, like those with injuries to their mental health.

With proper support in place, such health issues can be prevented from becoming worse and placing an even more acute (and expensive) burden on the health and care sector.

Unfortunately, the idea of a National Care Service has become an abandoned issue by those parties who championed it in the previous Parliament. That they failed to deliver then should not become an excuse to walk away from the health and care needs of the people who would have benefited from it and continue to need it. That failure was entirely the fault of politicians who thought they could legislate a blank piece of paper into existence and then design the NCS at the same time as they were amending the Bill to create it.

Going into the next Parliament, the issue of an NCS must be brought back. A Care Service must be designed by and for the people who would use and would be employed by it. And then Parliament must legislate to make it happen.

It is a good thing for our society that mental health issues are starting to become recognised as the equal of physical health issues in their impact on people who suffer from them, but it is a severe warning that gaps in coverage are so widespread. This is an issue that impacts all of us. It is essential that the next Scottish Government and Parliament recognise this and work to fill those gaps as soon as it can.