SAMH response to the Audit Scotland report into adult mental health

13th September 2023

In response to the adult mental health services report published today by Audit Scotland, Billy Watson, Chief Executive of SAMH, said:  

“For some time, SAMH has been calling for a paradigm shift in how we design, resource and deliver mental health care in Scotland, including preventative actions and support for people with severe and enduring mental health problems. 

“We welcome today’s report from Audit Scotland on the performance of adult mental health services which sets out the current situation and makes recommendations for improvement, which we hope will be accepted by Scottish Government.

“We know there are significant problems in accessing support for mental health, Scotland as a whole has not once met the 18-week waiting time target for adult psychological services. Added to this, the combined impact of the pandemic, cost-of-living crisis and long-term structural problems in our mental health system leaves Scotland vulnerable to very serious mental health challenges ahead. 

“Easily accessible and timely mental health support for people in the community, including preventative and early intervention support, must be a top priority. 

“While we welcome commitments from the Scottish Government to increase mental health spend over the course of the parliament by 25%, ensuring that at least 10% of frontline NHS spend goes to mental health, this report demonstrates we are some way off realising this.

“Furthermore, we believe to achieve the radical redesign that Scotland so urgently needs, funding for mental health as a percentage of total NHS spend must match spending in other parts of the UK. 

“A more transparent approach to mental health-related spending, data collection and data monitoring is urgently needed. As this report highlights there is no clear mechanism to accurately track public spending on mental health, and only extremely limited data available in Scotland regarding our mental health and the impact of mental health services and interventions. There must be a fundamental shift to monitoring individual and service outcomes, including measurements of recovery. Collecting individual outcomes is key to understanding service quality and effectiveness, and to promoting good practice.”