SEC/28/12
MINUTES OF THE THIRD CROSS PARTY GROUP ON MENTAL HEALTH HELD ON MAY 9TH2012 IN THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT
1. PRESENT
Malcolm Chisholm MSP (in the Chair); Karen Addie (Minutes); Shaben Begum; Julia Braun; Shane Buckeridge; Graham Burgess; Alison Cairns;Julia Clark; Moira Connolly; Mig Coupe;Alan Douglas ;Susan Donnelly;Iain Freer; Laura Gibson; Polly Gilfillan; James Hendry; Debbie Innes;Eddie Kelly; Kenneth Lamont; Cath Logan; Donnie Lyons; Karen Martin; Sandy McComish; Willie McFadyen ; Andrew Muir; Chrys Muirhead;Graeme Nisbet; Chris O Sullivan; Mark Ramm; Hilary Robertson; Traci Robertson; Mandi Reid; Gordon Reid; Margaret Ross; Helena Scott; Andrew Sim; Kevin Smith; John Wilson MSP (part of the meeting) Phil Watson; Norman Wallace.
2. APOLOGIES
Apologies for absence were received from: Martin Adam;Guy Armstrong; Drew Smith MSP; Joanna Gordon; Fiona MacLeod MSP; Mary Scanlon MSP; Robert MacBean; Belinda Hacking; Peter Glissov; Richard Jones; Susan Archibald; Hilary Campbell; Jackie Baillie MSP and Fiona Forbes.
3. MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 19 JANUARY 2012
The minutes of the meeting held in January were accepted as an accurate record of the meeting.
4. MATTERS ARISING
Helena Scott from Health in Mind update the group about “Working Well” the report which was recently launched in the Scottish Parliament, supported by John Wilson MSP, Richard Simpson MSP and Jackie Baillie MSP. John Wilson confirmed he would meet with the other MSPs who had been there to get all the things they signed up to on the agenda including a reception in the Parliament towards the end of October. Malcolm Chisholm was also invited to become involved. At the launch it had been suggested a Members Debate should take place. The topic is a big issue at present as in the current economic climate
service users may find it even more difficult to engage in employment.
5. BRIEF UPDATE ON THE SCOTTISH MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE FOR DEAF PEOPLE (Dr Deborah Innes)
Dr Deborah Innes thanked the group for the invite to update them on the Scottish Mental Health Service for Deaf People based in Livingston. The talk is particularly timely as it is Deaf Awareness Week.
The service, based in St John’s Hospital has one part-time Consultant (Dr Innes) and 3 part-time nurses.
The service covers the whole of Scotland and each nurse looks after patients from one region with Scotland being divided roughly into North Scotland, East Scotland and West Scotland. For some people the travelling to the service can be over a huge distance. The remit of the service is to provide a service to those who have moderate to severe mental health problems. People who are hearing impaired often also have complex issues. The service provides assessment, diagnosis, advice and sign posting. The staff also offer advice and sign posting to other voluntary sector and third sector services. They will provide ongoing support for people with severe and enduring symptoms.
They also offer some time limited treatments – this is appropriate because they can communicate with the service users. They see people with severe to profound hearing impairment.
The service has a Service Level Agreement with the John Denmark Unit in Manchester which provides inpatient beds for these patients. For many patients it is more appropriate for them to go to hospital where they can access treatment through their interaction with the staff. They see people with severe to profound impairment.
Deaf people often have a different cultural background. Some people with acquired deafness have isolation issues as they may not be able to communicate with their family etc but yet they don’t feel part of the deaf community.
Some patients have dual impairment.
They only see adults but they will provide advice to colleagues in Old Age or CAMHs services.
As well as seeing patients they gather statistics. It is difficult to get numbers of people with mental health problems who are deaf.
They have set up a training programme due to run until Autumn which offers training to all the Health Boards on deaf awareness issues with mental health. Take up for this training has been over 400 staff since starting.
They have produced cards with tips on them for staff who find themselves dealing with a hearing impaired person. Copies of the cards were handed out to the group members. There is also a lot of information on the website.
Donnie Lyons welcomed the initiative and commented the hints cards are helpful. He added the MWC has an interpreters toolkit on its website which is helpful for both BSL and other languages.
Helena Scott asked how do people get referred to local 3rd sector services and whether it is the Local Authority who are responsible for providing interpreting.
Debbie accepted this is a problem.
When the national service sees someone the signposting is usually to deaf organisations, to allow them to access a service – for example who would provide funding for someone to provide interpreting to attend an AA meeting. They do their best to raise awareness of that when communicating with local Mental Health Services , to see if solutions can be found.
Local teams must provide an interpreter if required. Debbie reminded the group there are other communication methods used in working with deaf people, not just BSL.
James Hendry thanked Willie McFadyen from Scottish Council on Deafness who originally raised this whole issue at Cross Party Group meetings going back a few years. This group has been very supportive of the service being set up. He asked Debbie how it can it be developed and what the plans are for the future given the lack of resources. Debbie responded saying they still have an agreement with the John Denmark Unit to provide some assessments. Exploring specialist assessment, they can develop links with local teams or people with a special interest and allow them to further develop this. Lothian already has a local service. Glasgow are trying to get one off the ground. At the moment the service is providing training and assistance to areas who want to develop expertise but they are limited by the amount of staff time the service has.
Willie McFadyen from the Scottish Council on Deafness commented that they have campaigned for a specialist service since 2000. In England there is a network of community based services. He added that MSPs and member organisations of the group should be aware there is a process starting to get a Bill recognising BSL. This would give additional recognition to BSL users and require some authorities to fulfil their responsibilities. .
Sandy McComish from the Mental Health Nursing Forum suggested it may be good to target information and training to pre-registration nurses. This is an area not tackled well in the current curriculum. He offered to take it back to Stirling University where there is a course for undergraduates for mental health nursing. Debbie welcomed that and added it needs to involve all medical staff not just nursing.
6. PRESENTATION ON SELF-MANAGEMENT FROM BIPOLAR SCOTLAND
Alan Douglas from Bipolar Scotland presented to the group on the Self Management Course delivered by Bipolar Scotland (presentation attached to these minutes).
Questions from the floor.
Chrys Muirhead offered to show Alan some information she has on Wellness, Recovery Action Plan (WRAP). She welcomed the development to do courses for carers of someone with Bipolar disorder as carers often need support and their own health can suffer, these courses could be useful.
Karen Martin from the Princess Royal Trust for Carers said shevery interested in the two discussions. Her organisation is looking at how to provide information and support for carers of people with mental health problems and they are considering using WRAP facilitators. They are trying to develop a network of WRAP trained carers. They are particularly interested in the self management principles being transferred to carers.
Willie MacFadyen asked to what extent could the courses be adaptable to sign language or any other non English language.
Alan replied that currently all the courses are in English. Bipolar Scotland have self help groups all around Scotland butvery few ethnic language users, Alan accepted they have not been very good at targeting these groups.
James Hendry asked how would people get to go on one of the courses. Alan confirmed they would just contact Bipolar Scotland who keep a database of people who have enquired. Some self help groups have been keen to run it in their groups. At present Bipolar Scotland can only fund 4 a year and they would like to do more. There are more details on Bipolar Scotland website.
Chris O Sullivan commented on access inequalities and spoke about some work Action on Depression have done regarding their “living life to the full” community courses which have targeted trainers in groups. As self management, and more widely , peer support, becomes more validated and recognised there becomes a need to adapt to be more accessible to those who have equality issues.
Donnie Lyons asked if Alan had considered giving this presentation to the Scottish Mental Health Tribunal. The Tribunal can make recorded matters, they can order various things, one of the things that is important to people with Bipolar disorder is to get information about self management courses and it would be useful for members of the Tribunal to know that.
Iain Freer commented he would like to see training programmes like this being thrown wide open as there is nothing like that in the general mental health field for people in Scotland. Alison Cairns agreed but pointed out Bipolar Scotland would be delighted to broaden out the course but they have restricted funding. . They run it on a small scale for their own members but they would love to go to CHPs or Health Boards to run courses. They would need to train more facilitators and that is all funding dependent.
Chrys Muirhead advised that the Scottish Recovery Network is promoting WRAP and it should be available in every area as it is a national programme, it is not illness related.
Moira Connolly(Scottish Government) clarified the Government currently provides the funding. There has been no evaluation of the similar but different courses in England so Scotland is ahead in this regard.
Alan Douglas confirmed it would be good if Boards could commission the courses but they would also need a larger evaluation. Alan went on to say anecdotally, people who had been on the course reported positive outcomes, some people said they had made positive decisions regarding education and employment following the course. Alan hoped in some cases it had prevented hospital admission or madegoing into hospital a smoother process. In this regard it could save the NHS money.
Malcolm Chisholm asked about the triggers and warning signs and to what extent is this individualised. Alan confirmed the courses have open discussions and often find in a group of that size there will be common triggers amongst the participants.
Sometimes people recognise their triggers for the first time by listening to others sharing their own experiences. A lot of the course comes down to the group discussions. That is why it lasts a whole day as this can take up quite a bit of time.
Malcolm Chisholm also asked was there any scepticism and Alan repliedit is purely a resource issue as the only block is money.
7. MEMBERSHIP OF THE GROUP
The group considered applications to join as member organisations from the Princess Carers Trust, Scottish Institute for Human Relations and Ingeus. Phil Watson from Ingeus explained that their organisation deliver work programmes across Scotland for clients referred by their local job centre. They help to get people back into work who have mental health problems. They don’t provide treatment to individuals but they do provide evidence based support. Shaben Begum asked if clients are compelled to take part in a work programme, Phil confirmed this is a complex issue but the health and wellbeing part of the programme is entirely voluntary.
The group agreed the three organisations should be accepted as members.
8.NEW CONSULTATION ON TRIBUNALS
The group had a brief discussion on the consultation which is out at the moment with a deadline for response of 15 June. Donny Lyons encouraged members to respond as it is very important the proposed changes affecting Mental Health Tribunals are understood.
9. ANY OTHER COMPETENT BUSINESS
(i).John Wilson MSP informed the group that he and the Secretariat had written a joint letter to an individual who had disrupted previous meetings of this group telling him he was no longer welcome to attend group meetings in the Parliament. This decision had not been taken lightly but it had been necessary as some organisations and members had been offended by the views expressed by this individual and had said they would no longer attend group meetings if this person was allowed to continue to attend. All proper procedures had been followed involving Parliamentary Standards. John Wilson advised members he did not want to debate this issue further but if any member or organisation is contacted by this individual they should contact Karen Addie or his own office for advice.
10. DATE AND TIME OF NEXT MEEITNG
The group had a brief discussion about topics for future meetings. Andrew Muir said he would like something on the Mental Health Act, particularly in relation to whether it is compatible with Human Rights legislation. Donnie Lyons supported this and suggested as there will be legislation introduced at some point over next year it would be helpful for the group to look at this.
Some other suggestions were: Healthcare needs of older people (not dementia)
Healthcare and social care integration; IndependentAdvocacy; Mental Health Strategy (coming out at the end of the summer); HEAT Target on access to psychological treatment that doesn’t fit into the matrix; Self – directed support.
It was agreed to set the date of the next meeting (which will include the AGM) by email.
CPG Minutes May 2012 typed by Karen Addie Page 1