Working to improve quality of care and health outcomes for people with mental health and substance use support needs.
Studies show clear links between mental health and substance use, with people struggling to access appropriate support. "The Way Ahead: Rapid Review of Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Health Conditions in Scotland" highlights the importance of integrating mental health and substance use services to improve care for those with co-occurring disorders. The Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standard 9 specifically emphasises the right of individuals to seek mental health support alongside other forms of treatment. These standards and policy set by the Scottish Government forms part of the rationale and focus for this programme of work.
Phase 1
The Mental Health and Substance Use: Improving our Response (IOR) Programme will aim to deliver improvements in:
- Quality of care
- Access to treatment
- Overall health outcomes for people with mental health and substance use support needs.
Phase 2
The Mental Health and Substance Use: Protocol Programme has been commissioned by the Scottish Government to create, test and implement a good practice protocol for how mental health and substance use services should work together.
"The Way Ahead" review proposes seven recommendations. HIS is tasked with supporting Recommendation 1: Ensure that each area has an agree protocol in relation to the operational interfaces between mental health services and substance use services.
Through the development of a protocol and ongoing support this work will seek to improve clinical practice, joint working and interfaces between services to improve outcomes for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions accessing services.
Support for NHS boards and health and social care partnerships.
We support NHS boards and health and social care partnerships delivering metal health and / or substance use services in a number of ways:
- To understand the current service state and needs
- Providing in-depth coaching and improvement support to a number of areas
- Engaging with people with lived experience of mental health and substance use
- By delivering a learning system
Get involved
- Connecting with participating services in your area
- Register to join our upcoming webinars. Dates and times to follow.
Get in touch
If you have a question and would like to speak to a member of the team about the Mental Health and Substance Use Programme please get in touch.
If you wish to join our distribution list to hear more about upcoming webinars please contact us on the email below.
Email us at his.transformationalchangementalhealth@nhs.scot