The continued need for The Fire Fighters Charity’s mental health support services has been highlighted today with the publication of research claiming that 65% of the UK’s fire and rescue service personnel have seen a deterioration in their mental health during the pandemic.
The study, conducted by Mind’s re-launched Blue Light Programme – of which The Fire Fighters Charity is a partner – found that mental health has worsened across all 999 services, with 20% of fire service personnel today rating their mental health as either poor or very poor.
Funded by The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Blue Light Programme brings together The Fire Fighters Charity, The Ambulance Staff Charity, Police Care UK and Mind to further the mental health and wellbeing of the UK’s emergency responders.
Dr Jill Tolfrey, Chief Executive of The Fire Fighters Charity said: “We commend Mind and the Blue Light Programme on the publication of this latest research, which once again highlights the incredible pressures faced by those who work across our fire and rescue services.
“Covid-19 has amplified these pressures for many on the frontline and brought new mental health challenges for others. As ever, our role at The Fire Fighters Charity is to ensure that we are always here for those in need.
“While we have had to move our mental health services online during the pandemic, we have supported thousands through virtual consultations over the past year and will continue to do so, while also bringing back our face-to-face services over the weeks to come.
“My message to anyone facing a challenge to their mental wellbeing today is therefore simple. We are here for you. Please pick up the phone or get in touch through our website and we will do whatever we can to help you.”
Members of the fire and rescue services in need of support with their mental wellbeing can call The Fire Fighters Charity’s Support Line on 0800 3898820 or visit www.firefighterscharity.org.uk/support
Funding of £20 million will deliver a range of activities for children and young people and their families over the summer, ensuring they are provided with opportunities to socialise, play and reconnect within their local communities and environments.
In particular this will provide support for those children and young people who may otherwise struggle to access such experiences during the holidays.
Working with local authorities and partner organisations including sportscotland, Creative Scotland, Play Scotland, Education Scotland and others, the funding will support existing provision of community-based services while also widening access to other local facilities, such as school estates and local sports facilities.
Speaking before Holyrood broke up for May’s elections, Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “We do not underestimate the physical and mental health impacts which children and young people have experienced throughout the pandemic, and that the impacts have fallen unequally across society.
“This enhanced range of summer experiences for children and young people will help address the impacts associated with extended periods of isolation and reduced participation in normal activities. This offer will have children’s rights and needs at its heart, and will provide opportunities to socialise across a range of activities, combined with broader support where needed.
“This will build on local summer offers, recognising the need for flexibility to deliver using local assets and connecting with wider offers from partners.
“Over the next few months we will continue to develop further all aspects of our education recovery strategy with our partners and stakeholders. Following periods of disruption to in-school learning, this will include how we can intensify and deepen support for children and young people’s progress in learning, including in key areas such as literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing.”
People living in Lothian can now access a new website dedicated to helping them manage their own wellbeing and mental health and get information on available support and services.
The Wellbeing Lothian website (wellbeinglothian.scot) has been designed by an expert team of NHS Lothian psychologists and practitioners. It aims to help people navigate the range of online self-help advice by providing a hub of trusted information and resources, which are known to be effective.
Dr Belinda Hacking, Director of Psychology NHS Lothian and Consultant Clinical Psychologist explained: “The pandemic has been a source of worry and anxiety for most people. During these difficult times it’s vital that we take positive steps to look after ourselves. Our mental health is just as important as our physical health, and managing our wellbeing is a really good place to start.”
The website hosts a wide range of self-help resources on topics from managing weight and sleep to dealing with stress and anxiety. It also offers information on how to access online courses such as computerised Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for those who are interested in learning more about these techniques. All the resources are free.
Dr. Donna Gilroy, Consultant Clinical Psychologist for NHS Lothian who coordinated the development of the website said: “We know people use different things at different times to improve their mental health. That’s why we’ve created a resource people can access when they need and where they feel comfortable.
“You can search the website for support on different things, such as improving your mood or coping after a break-up and find out more about normal reactions to these situations, which can help to reassure people. You can also choose whether you want to learn, assess, manage or get support about an issue or condition.”
Wellbeing Lothian was designed with support from Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian Health and Social Care Partnerships. It includes a section with links to relevant services and organisations in each regional area and beyond.
Dr Belinda Hacking added: “It was important we designed a credible website based on what we know works well. That’s why you’ll find bite size video and audio clips from health professionals and service users, as well as easy read guides and tutorials.
“We hope it will be a valuable resource for people, particularly during lockdown, and we encourage everyone to explore it.”
Scottish Conservative Edinburgh Southern candidate, Miles Briggs, said: “Wellbeing Lothian is an excellent initiative to provide practical mental health tools for people who are struggling.
“The past year has been incredibly tough, with the stress and uncertainty of Covid-19 being bad for many people’s mental health.
“This website is not a solution for the mental health challenges we are facing in Scotland, but part of the solution, providing access to resources for supporting people to maintain good mental health.”
Anyone can access the website online at wellbeinglothian.scot.
The resources will be reviewed regularly and updated to address people’s feedback and needs.
Mental Health Minister Clare Haughey has written to health boards setting out priority areas of investment from the Scottish Government’s recently announced £120 million Recovery and Renewal Fund.
Ms Haughey said: “The lockdown has been difficult for us all, not least young people – affecting their work, social and family lives and job and learning opportunities. That is why we intend to make around £40 million available to take forward dedicated work to improve Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
“This will include capacity building to meet expected increases in demand, specialist neurodevelopmental assessments, and ensuring young people have access to intensive psychiatric inpatient care when they need it.
“An essential part of this investment will be funding for a clinical director for each CAMH service to drive forward change.
“Further to this, we will invest up to £15 million to help clear backlogs in CAMHS and Psychological Therapies waiting lists.
“However we recognise that not all children and young people need specialist services like CAMHS, and so we will also continue to support the expansion of community services at a local level.
“Our £120 million Mental Health Recovery and Renewal Fund is the single largest investment in mental health in the history of devolution, and shows the priority we are placing on mental health. The Fund will be used to deliver our full agenda for mental health and wellbeing, as set out in our Transition and Recovery Plan.
“This will help to improve access to services across Scotland as well as ensuring good mental wellbeing at a population level, a comprehensive distress response, and the right help and support in our communities. We are carefully considering the potential for other investments over the course of 2021-22, and we will make further announcements in due course.”
Joanna Barrett, Associate head of Policy for the Devolved Nations, NSPCC Scotland, said: “The events of the last year have profoundly impacted the lives of children and young people in Scotland, with some suffering traumatic experiences including bereavement and abuse.
“Following the start of the pandemic last year, we saw a rise in referrals from our adult helpline about child abuse and an increase in contacts to Childline about emotional and mental health. Our counsellors heard from children struggling with loneliness and isolation, worries about education, increased parental stress and abusive home environments. Some young people talked about feeling suicidal.
“So this investment by the Scottish Government to address children and young people’s mental health is crucial for the recovery of our younger generation. But it is important we also remember and support our very youngest and most vulnerable members of society, those under five, whose wellbeing is closely attuned to that of their carers, and who cannot voice the harm they have experienced.”
On the day that the nation reflected on one year since the first stay-at-home order of the Covid-19 pandemic, the British Psychological Society calls for the psychological needs of healthcare staff to be front and centre of the nation’s recovery.
Coronavirus has cost more than 140,000 lives in the UK over the last year, and we fell silent at 12pm yesterday to remember those we have lost. The toll is unimaginable, and the effects so wide reaching that there is no one in the country whose life has not been profoundly affected by the pandemic.
There are few groups that have been impacted as significantly as the healthcare staff working on the frontline to treat Covid-19 patients and keep the NHS functioning during an unprecedented period.
Psychologists have played a central role in developing the NHS’s early initiatives on staff support in response to the pandemic, including new wellbeing hubs, and it is vital that psychological expertise is incorporated into all future developments.
The recent NHS staff survey results showed a further increase in work-related stress levels in the NHS, and likelihood of staff burnout is only going to rise as the effects of working through the pandemic become more apparent.
Risks are particularly high for the 40.3 per cent of NHS staff who were already experiencing stress at work before the pandemic hit, and for those working in intensive care units with the sickest Covid-19 patients.
It is key that the focus is now on rebuilding the NHS as psychologically healthy and resilient, supporting staff wellbeing on a cultural and organisational, as well as individual, level.
Dr Julie Highfield, consultant clinical psychologist in Wales’ largest critical care unit and wellbeing project director for the Intensive Care Society, said: “One year on, I welcome the progress in involving psychologists in staff wellbeing initiatives, however much of the focus is on individual mental health.
“Although this is helpful in part, it’s not the whole picture. When I meet with staff what they describe does not fit neatly into common mental health pathways, it is the way chronic excessive workload has changed their relationship with work.
“If we just focus on mental health provision and individual resilience, we miss the systemic factors that contribute to the experience of work such as workplace culture, leadership and sufficient staffing, education, equipment, and facilities. As psychologists, we should also support workforce sustainability for a future healthier NHS and social care sector.
“We need to utilise the skills, knowledge and evidence base of Psychologists to help organisations to understand how to provide the core conditions to thrive at work, therefore reducing the risk of psychological harm.”
Dr Adrian Neal, chair of the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology’s Leadership and Management Faculty, added: “As we mark the first anniversary of the UK’s pandemic lockdown, it seems a natural opportunity to reflect, take stock of the impact and look forward.
Right now we are seeing an exhausted workforce, an increase in grief, burnout and more acute mental health difficulties (though less than we had expected), as well as changes in how people are relating to their work, peers, communities, and employers.
It is widely recognised that employee and organisational wellbeing is going to be vital to the sustainability of our public sector systems, and resources have been mobilised at pace in an attempt to mitigate perceived needs.
Perhaps the most useful thing we can do as psychologists is to encourage a calm and evidenced approach to fully understanding and formulating the psychosocial impact the pandemic in all of its unfolding complexity.
If we can do this, psychologists will play an important role in supporting both individuals and organisations in how they recover, adapt and grow in the years to come.”
Report raises concerns as services supporting women and babies come under strain
During and after pregnancy, women have faced greater likelihood of poor mental health during the pandemic, including anxiety, depression, loneliness and suicidal thoughts, according to a new report commissioned by a coalition of leading maternal mental health organisations.
Women of colour and women from poorer economic backgrounds are more likely to experience mental health problems during and after pregnancy, according to the research.
The rapid review of evidence commissioned by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA), and conducted by Centre for Mental Health, for the first time compiles all available evidence into one place.
This shows that access to crucial services reduced for pregnant women, new mums and babies across the UK, especially during the early stages of the pandemic. While health and care staff worked hard to deliver safe care, significant gaps emerged. Women also experienced a reduction in informal support from friends, relatives and networks of other women sharing their experiences.
Extra pressures include anxiety about giving birth during lockdown without partners present, fears of losing jobs, heightened levels of domestic violence, bereavement, worries about catching Covid-19, and concern about new infants catching the disease.
In addition, the wider system surrounding these services, including health visiting and maternity, needs to be protected and enhanced. Furthermore, up-to-date monitoring and research of maternal mental healthcare should be commissioned.
It also says that without sustained funding, many Voluntary and Community Services will not survive, despite the increased demand from women for their services.
Luciana Berger, chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) said: ‘Today’s report should serve as an ear-splitting warning siren about the dangers to women’s maternal mental health and potential risks to the wellbeing of their babies.
The pandemic has placed additional challenges on new and expectant mums getting the care and support they need, taking many already-stretched services to the point of breaking. Women of colour and women from disadvantaged backgrounds have been particularly impacted, and Ministers must address this injustice with urgency.’
Sarah Hughes, chief executive of Centre for Mental Health, which carried out the research, said: ‘The Covid-19 pandemic has been a mental health challenge across society, but it has not affected everyone equally. It has placed especial pressure on women during pregnancy and after they’ve given birth.
“And it has made inequalities that were always there in plain sight even more pronounced. We need to take this opportunity to review and reframe what support women should expect for their mental health during the perinatal period, and to make sure that we prepare for any future crisis to avoid another loss of support at a crucial time in people’s lives.’
Aleema Shivji, Comic Relief Executive Director for Impact and Investment said: ‘The pandemic has put an unprecedented strain on the nation’s mental health and it is sadly no surprise that, as this report proves, pregnant women and new mums who face enormous challenges, have sadly been worst affected.
“It’s clear that more work is needed urgently to help tackle the shame and stigma attached to maternal mental health for mums to feel recognised, supported and able to ask for help. At Comic Relief we have prioritised funding mental health services for over 25 years, but it is clear this is still needed now more than ever.’
Today’s report Maternal mental health during a pandemic was commissioned by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and conducted by Centre for Mental Health, and covers all four parts of the UK.
Joanna Barrett, Associate Head of Policy (Nations) at NSPCC Scotland, said: “This report highlights the profound impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of parents during and following pregnancy, particularly in the most deprived communities of the country.
“We have long warned that without the right support at the right time, adult mental health problems during pregnancy and the first year can have serious immediate and long-term consequences for both young children and their families.
“That’s why our Fight for a Fair Start campaign is calling on the Scottish Government to invest in universal early years support, to give professionals the ‘time to care’ to develop positive and trusting relationships with infants and their families.
“This will give babies the best possible start in life, the support to recover from the pandemic, and the opportunity to thrive not just survive.”
The Scottish Liberal Democrat spring conference has today backed a package of proposals to “fix overwhelmed mental health services for good”.
As part of the party’s call to put recovery first, the seven-point plan will:
Increase the number of training places for psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, especially those specialising in CAMHS;
Add counsellors to NHS workforce planning so their skills can help more people;
Expand the trained counselling workforce through new bursaries and training routes to widen access;
Fully resource mental health services through a target for them to receive 15% of future health spend increases;
Make every health service contact count through enhanced signposting to existing counsellors and third sector resources;
Provide new community services that young people can access with their families;
Restart and ramp up mental health first aid training with a new aspiration that every workplace should benefit.
Scottish Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: “It’s time for Scotland to put the recovery first and fix our overwhelmed mental health services for good.
“That means increasing the number of training places for psychiatrists and psychologists. We need to dramatically expand the number of counsellors and get the health service to help them tackle mental health problems in communities, schools and workplaces.
“The Scottish Government’s mental health strategy was years late and short on ambition. Even before the pandemic struck we had a record number of children waiting over a year for help.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats have consistently championed our national mental health. Already this year our research has shown the toll it is taking. We’ve led Parliament in declaring a crisis and secured £120 million more for services next year. But it needs the full weight of our proposals and a government that will put recovery first to fix this for good.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat mental health spokesperson Rebecca Bell said: “This election is about putting the recovery first and that can only happen if we put both physical health and mental health at the core of the recovery.
“Far too often mental health services are reliant on third sector provision with only a short- term funding commitment from the government. Meanwhile the Scottish Government cancelled training for mental health first-aiders during the pandemic despite similar courses continuing to run elsewhere in the UK.
“These first-aiders can make all the difference, for example, someone to talk to at work when they start feeling unwell, before problems get worse. At the same time 1 in 8 specialist positions in child and adolescent mental health are unfilled, with young people in long queues waiting for treatment whilst they and their families are desperate for help.
“It’s time for a radical change. Scotland needs this realistic investment in order to achieve the long-term solutions we require to emerge from this crisis. You shouldn’t have to wait years for mental health support, any more than you should for cancer or a broken leg.
“These proposals from Scottish Liberal Democrats demonstrate our commitment to making Scotland a mental health world leader.”
Staff and volunteers at a mental health and wellbeing charity have received a £2,000 donation from Amazon Development Centre Scotland in Edinburgh.
Health in Mind has been promoting mental health and wellbeing in Scotland since 1982. The charity provides a wide range of services such as Peer Connections Edinburgh, which helps adults who want to improve or manage their mental health by spending time with a peer volunteer that has their own experiences of mental health recovery.
The charity also runs iThrive Edinburgh, an online resource hub for the people of Edinburgh that provides information on mental health and wellbeing.
The donation from Amazon will go towards supporting their vital work in Edinburgh, including our Peer Connecting Service and Equal Access, which supports people from ethnic minority communities
Commenting on the donation, Graeme Smith, Managing Director at Amazon Development Centre Scotland, said: “We are pleased to support the great work of Health in Mind with this donation.
“The staff and volunteers go the extra mile to ensure the people of our community struggling with their mental health are supported.”
Lynne Stanford, Fundraising Manager from Health in Mind, said: “We want to say a huge thank you to Graeme and the Amazon team for this donation.
“It means a great deal to us to have this support at this time – COVID-19 has had a huge impact on people’s mental health. This donation helps raise awareness and importance for the support we provide and ensures we are here for people when they need us the most.”
Amazon Development Centre Scotland has been based in Edinburgh since 2004 and is responsible for devising and growing innovations that bring new levels of choice and convenience to hundreds of millions of customers around the world.
It houses teams of leading engineers, scientists, designers and product managers who work on everything from interactive user interface design to large-scale distributed systems and machine learning. The team is currently recruiting for a number of positions including software developers, engineers and applied scientists.
The donation was made as part of the ‘Amazon in the Community’ programme, whereby the company supports the communities around its operating locations across the UK.
Community donations are one of a number of ways in which Amazon is supporting communities across the UK during COVID-19.
Throughout the pandemic Amazon has provided students with free online STEM resources and supported virtual classrooms with no-cost resources from AWS. The company has also teamed up with charity partner Magic Breakfast to deliver over 3 million healthy breakfasts to disadvantaged children around the UK.
For more information on how Amazon is supporting the UK during COVID-19, click here.
Campaigner Rebecca Bell is welcoming the news that the First Minister has told parliament that parents with a baby under the age of one can have assistance with childcare, using a new exemption for indoor visiting.
Rebecca Bell, the mental health spokesperson for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, had launched a petition to allow for ‘bubbles’ for those with newborns, like they have in place in England and Wales.
She was prompted to do so after speaking to her friends with children in Leith, and also during phone canvassing in recent months, she and other volunteers kept hearing how much parents were struggling.
Speaking after the announcement at Parliament, Rebecca said: “We’ve been campaigning for this since last year, so I’m delighted to hear that finally parents with a baby can get some much needed support in their homes.
“This is so vitally important for the mental health and wellbeing of new families, but also for the development of these babies to interact with other people. Most of these children were born during lockdown.
“However, I will continue to stay in touch with those I’ve spoken to, to see if this restriction edit goes far enough. My petition called for a full baby bubble – like families in England have enjoyed since the start of December, and since last month in Wales.
“What the Scottish Government are introducing is not quite the same. As we ease restrictions there may still be a case for allowing bubbles, such as the one we (rightly) offer here to single parents.I believe a bubble is a more stable arrangement for planning childcare in the next few months, so I will be monitoring the success of this policy closely.
“Now we have eclipsed a year into this pandemic, it’s easy to see why fatigue has set in and mental health has been put under strain. Anyone with a newborn is sleep deprived, and around 1 in 10 new mothers experience post-natal depression, and this condition can also affects fathers too, of course.
“Any parent knows that you need lots of energy for it, and just having someone able to come into your house to hold your baby so you can eat some food, or shower can make a huge difference to your wellbeing. That’s why so many I’ve spoken to are really struggling to juggle parenthood and working from home.
“I’m so glad we finally got some movement from the Government on this, I just wish they’d done so sooner.”
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC), an alliance of leading providers of children’s services, has called for the Scottish Government to urgently increase mental health spend in its budget.
The call comes as new figures published today (2nd March 2021) from Public Health Scotland indicate that at the end of December 2020, 1,560 children and young people had been waiting over a year for mental health treatment.
These figures are the worst on record and represent a near tripling from December 2019 (589).
The SCSC has urged greatly increased investment in services for children and young people to tackle a current mental health pandemic. It has also called for a ‘national crusade’ as referrals begin to return to pre-lockdown levels.
The call comes amid growing concerns over a ‘lost generation’ of vulnerable children and young people, whose mental health is being impacted by the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic cases of poor mental health were at unprecedented levels and there are a growing number of vulnerable children who cannot access services.
However, just over 50p in every £100 of the NHS budget is being spent on specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). A frighteningly low figure even though mental health services are literally creaking at the seams due to greatly increasing demand.
The figures from Public Health Scotland also indicate that only four Scottish health boards are meeting the Scottish Government’s waiting time target of 18 weeks from referral to treatment over the quarter to December 2020. One out of four individuals are not being seen within this already lengthy 18-week target.
While 4,091 children and young people were treated over the period October to December 2020 by child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), only 73.1 per cent were seen within the 18-week waiting target and only four health boards met this target.
The SCSC has warned that mental health services will face an overwhelming and unprecedented pressure due to pent-up demand created by the Covid-19 lockdown, coupled with a cut in youth support services. This could potentially lead to a ‘lost generation’ of vulnerable children and young people who are missing out on the support they vitally need.
A spokesperson for the SCSC commented: “These latest figures are deeply troubling and point to a highly challenging environment for both our young people and our mental health services.
“We welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is intending to invest more than £1.1 billion in mental health services overall, but significantly greater funding is needed to address the current crisis facing our children and young people.
“While referrals are beginning to return to pre-lockdown levels, it is vital that children and families are provided with the support they so desperately need, especially given the impact of the pandemic on mental health. The fact that more than 1,500 of our most vulnerable children have been waiting more than a year for treatment in this respect is deeply disturbing.
“We would urge the Scottish Government to look to not just the NHS, but the third sector and other private sector organisations to play a key role in this, renewing its focus on prevention and early intervention.
“Our mental health services must receive the funding they vitally need or we face having a ‘lost generation’ of vulnerable children and young people.”
