News /

Mental health ‘jigsaw’ nearing completion

Chris Cope

11 March 2017 08:27

NHS SHETLAND is currently recruiting two new mental health roles as part of its latest drive to bolster its service in the isles.

Director of community health and social care Simon Bokor-Ingram told Friday’s Integration Joint Board (IJB) meeting in Lerwick that the posts were the “last two pieces of the jigsaw”.

The health board’s service has been publicly criticised in recent years by patients who felt they were waiting too long for appointments or were receiving poor care.

It is now recruiting a head of mental health services and a clinical nurse manager, both of which are new roles.

NHS Shetland previously boosted its mental heath staffing levels by appointing a number of employees in the department, including a consultant psychiatrist.

Speaking at the IJB meeting via video link, Hillswick GP Susan Bowie said in the past a psychiatrist visited Shetland and toured practices across the isles.

She asked whether mental health workers might be able to visit rural patients in the future.

Bogor-Ingram admitted there was a “tension” between the choice of having patients based centrally or making workers use up time travelling to outlying areas.

However, he said once the head of mental health services was in place then capacity is something that will be looked at.

The latest figures for psychological therapy waiting times in Scotland – which cover the last quarter of 2016 – groups together the Shetland and Western Isles health boards.

Data shows that over 80 per cent of people who started their treatment in the two regions between October and December did so within the target of 18 weeks.

Speaking after the meeting, NHS Shetland chief executive Ralph Roberts said while the recruitment moves are a “positive” step there is more progress still to go.

“In the last couple of years we wanted to get two psychiatrists, which we’ve done, we wanted to increase CPNs [community psychiatric nurses], which we’ve done, we wanted to put in a clinical psychologist, which we have now done,” he said.

Help keep Shetland’s news open to everyone

Good local journalism takes time, care and people on the ground. Membership helps us keep reporting the stories that matter to Shetland — and keep them free for everyone to read. Members get a weekly newsletter created especially for them, local ads only, and can bookmark stories and join the conversation in the comments.

“In the medium term, depending around training, there is still an aspiration to put in place a second psychology post that we would do a trainee level which would then build up, and we still want to do that going forward.

“And then I think we need to really take stock of where we are and where the service is and what we need in the future, and that may need to still change further.”