National Review Of Mental Health Services

A national review of mental health nursing in Scotland and a five-year action plan on how to develop this workforce has now been published.

The report – Rights, Relationships and Recovery – aims to improve future mental health services for patients and their families. The main aims of five-year action plan are:
– To support the role of mental health nurses in the recovery of patients’ mental health and enhance their role in areas such as health improvement, therapy and preventative care
– To strengthen the leadership in mental health nursing
– To improve support to newly qualified staff nurses
– To involve people who have experienced mental health problems in forward planning of services
– To redesign programmes of education that prepare people to be mental health nurses
– To increase the number of nurse consultants.

Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald said:
“Improving mental health services is a major priority for us. We want to enhance the quality of life and increase opportunities for social inclusion for people experiencing mental health problems. This report – ‘Rights, Relationships and Recovery’- is aptly named as it reflects the importance of  developing positive relationships with everyone involved in mental health services to support the recovery process. We consulted with mental health service users, families, carers and NHS professionals in the course of this review to create a future vision for mental health nursing that suits them.

“In line with Delivering for Health, this Review reaffirms our commitment to better prevention, health promotion and providing services to patients that meet their needs in local communities. A five-year action plan sets out specific actions that must be undertaken to ensure mental health nurses are supported and empowered in their workplace. More emphasis will be placed on the development of training opportunities for nurses and we have set targets for this.

“We are also aiming to increase numbers of nurse consultants with the emphasis on working in acute in-patient care and with older people. These actions should help to ensure positive improvements in the experiences and care of people with mental health problems, their families and carers.”

Maggie White, Acting Director of the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland, said:
“This unique strategy will re-energise mental health nursing. We particularly welcome the recommendations to improve nurse training and to increase the number of nurse consultants. This strategy deserves to be implemented in its entirety as it will bring about improved care for patients as well as motivated and highly skilled workforce.”

Dr Tom Brown, Chair of the Scottish Division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said:
“We think this is an excellent development in improving mental health services for all users and their families and carers. We welcome the commitment of the Scottish Executive in a five-year action plan to deliver the actions identified in the report. We are increasing the involvement of service users and carers in aspects of our work, including the training of psychiatrists and we are pleased to see the emphasis in the report on joint-working between nurses, service users and carers in developing a recovery-based approach.”

This review builds upon progressive policy and legislation, including Delivering for Health and the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. As of September 2005, there were approximately 6,708 whole-time equivalent registered mental health nurses employed in NHSScotland, working in a diverse range of hospital and community-based services.

Nine universities across Scotland provide the three-year pre-registration programme that leads to registration as a mental health nurse. The Executive contracts approximately 580 new students each year, with a total of 1500 students undertaking pre-registration programmes in any given year.

The Executive will establish a National Implementation Group to support delivery of the five-year action plan. Each NHS Board will also set up a local implementation group that reports annually to the National Implementation Group, to help deliver the five-year action plan.

An evaluation will be carried out at the end of the five-year action plan to examine progress of actions and consider further work to develop the mental health workforce.