by Mary Fee MSP

Last week at First Minister’s Questions, it was revealed by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard that there have been more than 5,000 rejected referrals to child and adolescent mental health services (CAHMS) since the Scottish Government promised a review of rejected referrals in March 2017 – 14 months ago.

Using his questions at FMQs, Richard Leonard put the First Minister to shame over her Government’s record on CAHMS services.

The number of rejected referrals to CAHMS services between April and December 2017 was 5,410, with 1,649 cases in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde alone – almost a third of all rejected referrals across Scotland.

As Scottish Labour’s mental health spokesperson, I have met with many charities, organisations and professionals involved in CAHMS services.

They have serious concerns over the SNP government’s handling of mental health services for children and young people, especially around rejected referrals, with waiting times for appointments far too high.

It is a scandal that children and young people are failed by this Scottish Government – and without proper access to care and treatment, their mental health problems will become more long term and possibly affect them into their adult lives.

Up and down the country, every year, thousands of children and young people are referred to our National Health Service for mental health treatment. And every year, thousands are turned away – yet this government does not know the reasons why.

It is time they did, for the sake of our children, and it is time the SNP acted on its promises.

Sticking with mental health issues, I spoke in a debate last week in the Scottish Parliament on the “Everybody’s Business” campaign on perinatal mental health.

Between 10 and 20 per cent of women face a mental illness, either during pregnancy or in the first year after birth, and organisations involved in the care of perinatal health have warned that rates of detection, and appropriate intervention, are low.

This is why the Maternal Mental Health Alliance has drawn up a map of health boards across Scotland showing the level of care and service available to pregnant women and new mothers by each health board.

It is nothing less than shocking that only one health board has a specialised perinatal community team, meeting the Perinatal Quality Network Standards Type 1, and that is NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

An even more shocking fact is that seven of the country’s health board regions have no provisions for perinatal mental health care of any kind.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has warned that the “failure to meet these standards is a significant threat of patient safety, rights and dignity”.

When I criticise the SNP Scottish Government on mental health, it is justified and backed up by evidence from external stakeholders – and, significantly, by the government’s own statistics.

It is time the SNP lived up to its own hype and promises and delivered for Scotland.