Progress on mental health crisis centre

CAMPAIGNERS have given a cautious welcome to news an announcement about a 24-hour mental health crisis centre for Dundee could be only weeks away.

Councillor Ken Lynn, Dundee City Council’s health spokesman and chairman of Dundee City Health and Social Care integrated joint board, said he hopes there will be more detail about agreed proposals for a centre in weeks rather than months.

Mr Lynn said he is “fully behind” the call for a 24/7 dedicated centre.

He added: “This has already been agreed by councillors and we are at the stage of firming up the details of providing a centre of this type.

“The pandemic has very much got in the way of this happening so far but hopefully it will now be weeks rather than months before some further detail and information regarding proposals can be shared.”

It comes after a growing number of calls for a crisis centre, sparked by recent deaths in the city.

An independent inquiry into mental health services in Tayside also suggested a centre as part of a raft of improvements.

It is hoped patients will be able to put themselves forward for treatment, without the need for a doctor’s referral.

Phil Welsh, one of the main campaigners for the centre, said: “If Dundee councillors have backed, unanimously, support for a nonreferral 24-hour crisis centre, this is long-awaited good news for the city.”

Mr Welsh, who runs the campaign group Not in Vain for Lee in memory of his son Lee, who took his own life in 2017, said he had been pleading with the authorities to do something.

He added: “Dundee has suffered more than its fair share of suicides over the last few years. If this centre can help anyone when they reach that pinnacle of crisis, then through our campaign Lee’s death will indeed not have been in vain.”

Mandy McLaren, whose son Dale

Thomson took his own life in 2015, just days after spending time in Dundee’s mental health facility Carseview, gave a cautious welcome to the announcement.

She said: “If this turns out to be accurate then that is perfect news.

“However, we need to wait and see and I would need to hear an awful lot more detail about how this would work and who would operate it.”

Brook Marshall, chief executive of youth mental health charity Feeling Strong, said: “We are strongly in favour of an accessible 24/7 crisis centre in Dundee which accepts self-referrals.

“Suicide prevention is a critical issue in Dundee and we believe the opportunity this presents to prevent avoidable deaths cannot be overstated.”

The announcement came as councillors considered a new Tayside Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy report – Living Life Well.

The report said work is ongoing to develop a “world class” mental health strategy for the “coming years”.