Scots Lib Dems accuse SNP ministers of ‘fiddling figures’ to ‘cheat’ their way out of mental health workers pledge
NATS ministers have been accused of fiddling figures for mental health workers to “cheat” their way to meeting a key pledge.
The Lib Dems said the Scottish Government was using “bogus” stats by claiming it had delivered a promise to recruit 800 mental health staff to A&Es, GP practices, police station custody suites and prisons.
Back in 2017, the SNP government claimed in a ten-year mental health strategy it would bolster these four “key settings” with the additional specialist staff.
And earlier this month, ministers boasted they had “significantly exceeded” this target, saying they’d brought in 958.9 whole time equivalent mental health staff over the last four years.
But a breakdown of the figures reveals that staff recruited for casualty wards, GPs, police stations and jails totalled just 652.3 - with the remainder based in other settings such as community work.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “It’s been clear for several years now that the Scottish Government were not going to meet this key staffing target.
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“But rather than redouble their efforts, they have chosen to cheat and include staff recruited for other settings and claim that this means they have met their target.
“It is setting a bad precedent that the government is prepared to roll out bogus figures to claim mental health performance is better than it actually is.
“Community workers and psychology practitioners have an important role to play but this is not what this target was for.”
The MSP has now filed a series of written parly questions to the Nats government “to get to the bottom of the true level of staffing in our mental health services and expose the Scottish Government’s attempts to pull the wool over people’s eyes”.
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The Scottish Government’s Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 set out plans to “increase the workforce to increase access to dedicated mental health professionals in all A&Es, all GP practices, every police station custody suite, and to our prisons”.
It added that it would over the next five years increase “additional investment to £35 million for 800 additional mental health workers in those key settings”.
Two weeks ago, SNP mental health minister Kevin Stewart claimed: “A total of 958.9 whole time equivalent mental health staff have been recruited in key settings over four years, significantly exceeding the original commitment for 800 additional workers.”
Last night, Mr Stewart said: “Our commitment to recruit an additional 800 mental health staff to frontline roles across Scotland was clear - we are delighted that we have not only achieved this, but exceeded it.
“The progress towards this target has been consistently and routinely publicly reported - reflecting the local decisions and priorities of integrated joint boards for their areas.
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“We would hope that everyone would welcome these additional posts in these key settings.”
Around one in three with Scots are estimated to affected by mental ill health every year.
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