« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-Being: annual review 2003-2004
Minister's Foreword
The Scottish Executive's National Programme for Improving Mental Health and Well-Being has two fundamental aims: to help improve the way in which people think and act about their own mental health and that of others; and to improve the quality of life, well-being and social inclusion of people who experience mental illness or mental health problems. These two aims are fundamentally linked and achieving them requires understanding, commitment and action from everyone in Scotland.
For too long, mental health issues have been misrepresented, misunderstood, ignored or delegated to others to deal with. This is no longer acceptable in modern Scotland. To be the country we want to be, we need to focus more on our emotional mental health and well-being, and on how we feel and think as a country, as organisations, as families and as individuals.
In September 2003, we launched the National Programme's three-year action plan. Much of the progress over the last 12 months is outlined in this document. A particular challenge is to help make better connections for mental health and mental well-being into a wider range of policy and action areas. For example, making more explicit the links to physical health and activity while improving health in workplaces, employment, schools, colleges and universities, in local neighbourhoods and communities, with families, with our children and young people and with our most marginalised and vulnerable communities. In short, we need to continue to take action on improving the mental health and well-being of everyone in Scotland, target work at the people who need it most, and make wider connections to improvements in our overall health.
The most important ingredient in any programme of activity in public policy, public health and health improvement is people. Without their energy, commitment and enthusiasm the work you will read about in this annual review would not exist. So I encourage you to join with us in taking this work forward in Scotland and to making your contribution to a more mentally aware and more mentally healthy Scotland.
Rhona Brankin MSP
Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care
Chair, National Advisory Group
« Previous | Contents | Next »