No progress on key Tayside mental health service concerns
- Published
Dundee's Carseview Centre was one of the services examined in the original independent inquiry
Tayside mental health services identified as needing urgent attention have seen no progress since last summer, a new report has found.
The independent report highlighted three issues, including significant delayed discharges and concern over the condition of Strathmartine Hospital.
Decisions on a new single site for inpatient mental health care have also stalled.
However, the report said improvements had been made in other key areas.
The Independent Oversight and Assurance Committee (IOAC), external report follows up concerns highlighted in its quarterly report from June last year.
Tayside Executive Partners, which comprise the chief executives of NHS Tayside, all Tayside local authorities, and the Tayside Divisional Commander of Police Scotland, said a detailed improvement plan would be submitted to the Scottish government by the end of March.
The IOAC said it was imperative that the health board proceeded with "pace and ambition" to make the improvements.
The IOAC was set up to investigate NHS Tayside after a damning 134-page report, external was published in February 2020 by Dr David Strang, following a 16-month inquiry.
In his report, Dr Strang set out a list of 49 recommendations the health board had to improve on.
Nearly three years later, the committee have concluded that the health board have failed to fully rectify 31 of those 49 issues.
In July 2021, NHS Tayside released their own report, claiming they had resolved 35.
In the new report, the health board has downgraded that assessment.
However, the oversight committee said there remained a "significant gap" between the health board's assessment of progress and their own.
'Ongoing improvements'
The committee devised a RAG scale (Red Amber Green) to determine how the health board had progressed in achieving the recommendations.
Green actions were considered complete. Amber meant actions had not achieved the intended outcome or were unlikely to achieve the outcome within the timescale required.
Red meant actions taken were insufficient, not under way or required urgent remedial action.
The committee considered 29 of the 49 recommendations as amber and two as red.
Designated within the red category were NHS Tayside's attempts to develop a pathway for patients who had been diagnosed with mental health and substance abuse issues.
The report states: "The Oversight Group is very concerned about the lack of strategic and coherent progress on this issue over the nearly three years."
The Scottish government's mental wellbeing minister, Kevin Stewart, said: "We are committed to continuing to work with the three local authorities in the Tayside area, NHS Tayside as well as Police Scotland, to support the ongoing improvements in the delivery of mental health services."
Tayside Executive Partners said: "One of the areas for immediate focus is the development of new plan for the delivery of the Tayside-wide Living Life Well strategy.
"Openness, transparency and meaningful engagement with patients, families, partners and communities is central to this strategy and a new programme of relationship-building involving mental health teams and people with lived experience is already under way."