Mental health is still a priority
NHS Tayside’s chief executive has assured the people of Perth and Kinross mental health remains a priority.
Grant Archibald was addressing board members as they discussed the draft action plan to address the 51 recommendations outlined in the independent inquiry chaired by David Strang.
The action plan,‘Listen, Learn, Change’, is authored by NHS Tayside’s new interim mental health director Kate Bell.
Back in February, at the last public NHS Tayside board meeting, Mr Archibald announced he had drafted in Ms Bell to help transform mental health services in Tayside after her role as programme director of NHS Lanarkshire’s mental health strategy ‘Getting It Right for Every Person (GIRFEP) A Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy for Lanarkshire (2019-2024)’.
Ms Bell was later appointed as NHS Tayside’s interim medical director of mental health at the beginning of April.
She attended the online meeting, held via Microsoft Teams, alongside Mr Archibald from Ninewells Hospital, and told board members that it was “business as usual”in this“very challenging and busy time.”
She said:“Mental health services remain a priority.”
Ms Bell said that despite COVID-19, “people have gone the extra mile and understood the importance of mental health.”
She told the board of the positive first meeting she had held with the mental health and wellbeing strategy board on May 19 which she said had a breadth of people on board.
Ms Bell said she had a good working relationship with David Strang who chaired the independent inquiry into mental health services in Tayside
Her report also stated:“Work is ongoing with a compact being progressed with the Scottish Government for the role of critical friend.”
Ms Bell praised staff in mental health services saying what she had seen was an“excellent workforce”and that there had been an improvement to both training and medical staffing with the recent appointment of three doctors.
Mr Archibald admitted it was frustrating that transformation plans and meetings were having to be done remotely due to the current public health crisis but emphasised the importance of meeting.
He said: “Irrespective of us dealing with COVID-19, there were issues we needed to deal with immediately. We needed to show that we meant what we said about mental health - that we would both learn and change.”