Scottish Charity launches its first Mental Health Care Hub

When you’re physically ill and need physical health care, who is the first person you contact?

It’s probably your GP.

Yes, GP services are strained to breaking point and in desperate need of repair and reform (Common Weal are working on a massive NHS reform project at the moment) but the idea is that you don’t need to try to pre-diagnose yourself before working out which health service to approach before seeking them out.

When you’re mentally ill, it’s often a lot harder to decide who to speak to first, never mind to try to get the care and treatment you need and this is before we deal with the stigma and shame that is still too often attached to mental illness compared to physical illness. This stigma along makes it difficult for people to even ask for help when they need it.

Just as with physical health, long mental health waiting times after help is sought can also cause comparatively moderate conditions to rapidly spiral into serious problems that cause far more harm and distress than they need to with delayed treatment then becoming much harder and more expensive to deliver.

This week, the charity Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH) has launched the first of what is planned to be several walk-in hubs where folk can arrive without an appointment and start the process of getting the help they need.

This programme is extremely similar to our proposal for the front-line delivery of our vision of the Scottish National Care Service. Rather than the centralised, Minister-controlled branding exercise that the Scottish Government tried to push on us, our blueprint would have been centred locally. Every community would expect to have a local Care Hub in the same way as we expect to have a local GP. These hubs would also deliver walk-in services that would help to direct you to the specialist help that you need for all of your care needs from mental health treatment to seeking social care for yourself or a loved one to helping to support to you provide that care.

These mental health hubs are obviously not going to be quite that comprehensive - which doesn’t in any way play down the important role that they will play - but they are a clear blueprint of the kind of care service Scotland deserves - one that is run on a not-for-profit basis and is delivered locally.

The attempt to create a National Care Service in this current Parliamentary session ultimately failed and, even if it had passed, it would not have delivered care on the local scale we need in the way that these care hubs will. As we move into the election period, Common Weal will be strongly advocating for the next Parliament to design a National Care Service worthy of the name, drawing upon the input and experience of our Care Reform Group and the many hundreds of others who tried to help guide the previous effort and then, once so designed, to legislate and launch the Care Service so that we can finally give all of us the care we need and deserve.