SAS have brought a brand new mental health service to the Highlands.
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00:00 This initiative is really important. Firstly, it means that it takes some of the strain
00:05 off the ambulance service, it takes some of the strain away from A&E, but most importantly,
00:11 it ensures that people who are in distress, who are calling for help, get the right help
00:16 in the right place at the right time. They get a compassionate response. They often don't
00:21 need to be taken into hospital. I think about 75% of calls don't need to go to hospital.
00:26 They get the help and support that they need at home. That's fantastic.
00:30 I'm tested in three different areas, in Highland, in Inverness, in Dundee and in Glasgow. I
00:38 think it's easier initially in the cities, but obviously in Highland, we're really keen
00:45 to learn the lessons for the rural areas. We have a vast and remote and rural area that
00:53 needs to be covered here in NHS Highland. It's really important that systems work well
00:58 in order to ensure that people can get that care at home because the distances are so
01:03 vast, it's hard to take people into hospital. One of the professionals involved talked about
01:09 the similarity between physical health and mental health. If somebody's having a heart
01:14 attack, the paramedics will attend, but they'll be supported by cardiology in the hospital.
01:21 This is exactly the same. If somebody is in mental distress, the paramedics can attend
01:27 and they will also be supported by psychiatric expertise in the background. It really means
01:34 that people get a much better response. The actual availability of mental health support
01:39 can be patchy or difficult to access. So this is a very proactive way of being able to provide
01:45 direct support to people who are facing a mental health crisis, but also to be able
01:50 to spread the learning from what we've dealt with, particular challenges, across the whole
01:55 of the network. There's often a view that if you're sick, for whatever reason, you
02:00 need to go to accident and emergency, but this is a fundamental way to stop people needing
02:06 to go to accident and emergency. There are other help and support. The NHS is a complicated
02:11 beast to be able to navigate, and this team can be really effective in helping people
02:16 get to the right place. It's about a commitment to mental health challenges across the whole
02:22 of Scotland, but again, particularly in the remote rural locations. So predominantly based
02:28 in Finesse, but reaching out into the high-end locations, providing expert support to teams
02:34 that are working in a variety of locations, knowing they can reach back, get advice from
02:39 experts, and leave the patients sometimes at home, but leaving them knowing that they're
02:45 caring for them safely. We see a whole range of mental health problems, people phoning
02:51 999 and NHS 24, ranging from acute behavioural issues to social stressors like relationship
03:01 problems. We also see a lot of issues with drugs and alcohol, as well as severe and enduring
03:10 mental health illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disease. We're very much focused
03:16 on being able to provide the right treatment to the patient at the right point in time.
03:22 We are able to help people with mental health crisis stay away from accident and emergency,
03:28 which in the past has always been one of the few resources for ambulance crews nationwide
03:35 to take people in these situations to accident and emergency. So with the partnership between
03:41 ourselves and NHS Highland, we are able to triage people at home and provide them or
03:45 signpost them to a more correct service or the correct service for them at the time.