The Scottish Liberal Democrats have called for an expansion in mental health support, including £5,000 grants for student counsellors and a mental health first aider in every workplace, as the party unveiled its manifesto for the upcoming elections.

The topic has been a focus for leader Willie Rennie, who will be looking to add to the five Scottish Lib Dem MSPs currently at Holyrood.

In the third of our series looking at each of the parties’ manifestos for the May Scottish Parliament elections, healthandcare.scot takes a look at what the Scottish Lib Dems are proposing for health and social care.

NHS recovery

The party is promising an ‘urgent catch-up’ programme for the NHS, including boosting the number of ‘diagnosis and treatment’ centres in health boards, though no further details are given. The Lib Dems are supporting the appointment of a patients’ commissioner to help people with complaints. The party says that a more decentralised model for services should be adopted to stop people in rural and remote areas facing long journeys to hospital.

Social care

A National Care Service as recommended by Derek Feeley’s review is not backed by the Scottish Lib Dems, who say the proposals could repeat the mistakes made in the creation of Police Scotland.

But the party says a step change in social care is still needed, and other recommendations should be implemented ‘as soon as possible’ without needing to wait for a new organisation.

These include government funding to meet wage levels set by national care pay bargaining, new national standards and a shift away from ‘task-based contracts’. Pledges to make advanced dementia care free and give care home residents’ families essential caregiver status also feature.

Drugs

On drugs and alcohol, the manifesto says ‘compassion and health treatment rather than prosecution’ should be the answer. This would see people caught in possession of drugs diverted to new education, treatment or recovery services rather than prison.

The manifesto commits to ‘radical steps’ with the Crown Office and the Lord Advocate to help establish heroin assisted treatment and safe consumption spaces. Plans for facilities are currently being blocked by the UK Government but Ministers in Scotland face pressure to go ahead regardless.

Mental health

The manifesto commits to 15% of new NHS spending going to mental health – distinct from both the Greens and the SNP, who say the figure should be 10% of overall frontline NHS spend.

There are undertakings to double the number of training spaces for child psychiatrists and offer £5,000 grants to student counsellors. The Lib Dems say the counselling should be incorporated in NHS workforce planning to ensure wider access to talking therapies and early intervention.

The Lib Dems say proposals to integrate Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) into a ‘new wider system of multi-disciplinary support’ would ‘abolish’ rejected referrals. As a first step, the party says a pilot of placing family workers in GP practices that reduces the need for formal intervention should be rolled out nationally.

Outside of the NHS, the party wants to see mental health first aiders in every workplace through a rapid restart and expansion of existing training schemes.

Digital

Any future targets relating to the use of digital innovations that have surged in the pandemic should be developed by NHS professionals, the Lib Dems say, to ‘avoid distorting clinical priorities’.

Workforce

To address what it calls the ‘past failings’ of workforce planning, the Lib Dem manifesto calls for annual reports to the Scottish Parliament and a study of why new qualified staff leave NHS Scotland to work elsewhere.

Primary care

More local services are promised by the party, including a boost to GP numbers and the multidisciplinary teams that support them, with the aim of moving to 15-minute appointments.

Perinatal care

A focus on mental health is also apparent here, with the manifesto promising better access to support for new parents, including better training for professionals and referral to community support networks. New dedicated facilities for perinatal loss are promised.

Public health and rehab

Set out in the manifesto are a number of measures to improve health promotion and screening, including ‘reinvigorating’ the detect cancer early programme, a ‘revamp’ of social prescribing and greater access to blood checks.

Research into the burden of M.E., as well as long covid and chronic fatigue, should be carried out by the Scottish Chief Scientist Office, according to the party. There are also commitments to improve ADHD treatment and screening, establish a long covid clinical network and improve support for covid survivors and people with chest, heart and stroke conditions.

 

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