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Well? Issue 4: Spring/Summer 2004
Making Progress... Delivering Change
NATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP MEETING
Tom McCabe, MSP
Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care
Mainstreaming the aims of the National Programme with other key policy and practice areas was the key theme at January's National Advisory Group (NAG) meeting in New Lanark.
Now chaired by Tom McCabe, Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care, the NAG meetings take place twice a year to review, assess and advise on work-in-progress and to ensure that National Programme resources are being invested wisely.
Mr McCabe, who was attending his first NAG meeting, expressed his appreciation at the level of collective commitment and continuing support for the National Programme:
"It was extremely heartening to hear members' views on how the National Programme agenda is progressing and their ideas for future work. Good progress is clearly being made in establishing a profile for the work we need to deliver. The meeting highlighted a number of key messages which we will take on board to help set the future direction of the National Programme's work."
These messages included:
The need to mainstream the work of mental health improvement into other policy and practice areas, in particular employment, social inclusion, education, children and young people.
The need to be more explicit about the interconnectedness of mental health issues in other areas, e.g. drug and alcohol misuse, poverty and social deprivation, victims of physical and sexual abuse and, importantly, the need to consider that health and well-being is about both mental and physical health.
Mr McCabe emphasised the need to be more explicit about what is expected from others. "This is obviously more than simply a health agenda. My expectation is that improving mental health and well-being is a collective Community Planning Partners' agenda which should now be reflected in all local Joint Health Improvement Plans."
To help make these links more explicit, Mr McCabe will be meeting with a number of groups to underline the importance of the mental health improvement agenda including NHS Boards, CoSLA, SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives), the STUC and others.
A report on the progress of the National Programme will be produced every year, the first of which will be available in early summer 2004, covering financial year 2003/4.
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