NHS Tayside faces six months without mental health director
David Strang's carried out a review of what's changed since his damning report highlighted 51 recommendations
Last updated 14th Jul 2021
It's feared efforts to improve Tayside's mental health services could suffer as the region faces six months without a new leader.
The interim mental health director left in March.
Now a report by David Strang, who highlighted 51 recommendations last year says the board's not due to line up a replacement until September at the earliest.
Mandy McLaren from Dundee whose son Dale took his own life says that's a big worry.
"There's nobody there now, so who's lap do any issues fall on? If someone's got a complaint about mental health services, who do they go to?," she asked.
"The culture change is the big thing, until that's sorted and staff can feel safe and secure about coming forward with issues, the workplace won't be good and the patients will suffer as well."
Mr Strang's scathing report in February 2020 highlighted a culture of "fear and blame" within NHS Tayside, with some patients reporting they'd been told by staff to 'get a grip' when asking for help.
Long way to go
His latest review has concluded "there remains a long way to go to improve mental health services in Tayside."
He's worried about a lack of leadership and trust issues and has highlighted five action points the health board must deliver.
Five action points
- Recommendation 5 (review delegated responsibilities for delivery of mental health and wellbeing services) must be revisited urgently to resolve the relational issues which still exist in Tayside.
- The response to all recommendations should be subject to some form of independent scrutiny to assess more accurately the progress that has been made.
- An implementation plan is urgently needed for the Living Life Well Strategy (NHS Tayside's strategy to improving services)
- Ongoing oversight of Tayside’s response to the recommendations should be provided by the Scottish Government’s Quality and Safety Board for Mental Health Services.
- Senior leaders should engage meaningfully with staff, patients, families and carers in the development of future plans.
David Strang did find a "great deal" of positive changes have been made including the development of a mental health discharge hub and the planning of local hubs in each Health and Social Care Partnership area.
"Undue pressure" to deliver findings "to allow for 'Green' status"
Of the 51 recommendations he highlighted, 49 are to be implemented by NHS Tayside with the Scottish Government tasked with enforcing the remaining two which are a national review of the scrutiny of mental health services and guidelines for responding to substance misuse on inpatient wards.
As of 24 June NHS Tayside had marked 35 of these findings as 'Green', meaning they had been implemented.
However, Mr Strang concluded it was "not credible or realistic" that two of them could have been completed within an 11 and 13 month period allocated by the health board.
This involved a new culture to build trust and a guarantee bullying and harassment will not be tolerated.
The former has since been changed to 'amber' by the health board.
His review found some people felt "undue pressure" to "deliver the recommendations of the action plan... simply to allow for 'Green' status"
What does NHS Tayside say?
The region's Chair Lorna Birse-Stewart said,: “The Board of NHS Tayside welcomes today’s report by Dr Strang and his review team and we will now be taking the time to consider all aspects of the report, alongside our partners, to respond to the five actions which have been recommended.
“The Review Team state in today’s report that it found a great deal of positive changes in progress and was impressed with the commitment and dedication of staff, partner organisations and others seeking to make a difference for patients and the wider community in Tayside.
"We know that there is work still to do and we are realistic about the scale of the challenge ahead.
“Last month we published the Listen Learn Change Progress Overview which is NHS Tayside’s evidenced status report on the progress made against the 51 Recommendations by teams and services since the publication of the Listen Learn Change Action Plan in August 2020."