Mental health

This Thursday Derek Mackay will deliver a speech setting out the Scottish Government’s spending plans for the next financial year. It is crucial that this Scottish Government budget is a ‘Budget for Mental Health’.

Alongwiththescottishassociation for Mental Health, the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition has called on the Scottish Government to invest heavily in mental health services for children and young people and to promise an additional £100 million a year for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), almost tripling the current budget. This would bring Scotland into line in terms of what is being invested in such services south of the border.

The call comes on the back of new figures indicating that a mere 0.48 per cent of NHS Scotland’s budget is spent on CAMHS, amounting to just over £54 million. In addition, only 6.34 per cent of the overall mental health budget is spent on these services.

These very low figures are despite the fact that around three children in every classroom has a diagnosable mental health problem and half of mental health problems are established by the age of 14. Faced with such a greatly increased demand, mental health services are literally ‘cracking at the seams’.

We applaud what the Scottish Government has done to move mental health up the agenda, but if it truly wants to achieve its vision of ensuring that people can get the right help at the right time and expect recovery, there must be the necessary resourcing to deliver adequate services.

If we are to make Scotland the best country in the world for children and young people to grow up in, when Mr Mackay delivers his budget it is vital that he makes this a ‘Budget for Mental Health’. THE SCOTTISH CHILDREN’S

SERVICES COALITION Tom Mcghee, Spark of Genius Duncan Dunlop, Who Cares?

Scotland Stuart Jacob, Falkland House

School Niall Kelly, Young Foundations,

George Street, Edinburgh