It also acknowledges the need for significant improvements in workforce planning as well as action to tackle recruitment and retention challenges in mental health nursing.
The Workforce Action Plan highlights the role of the Ministerial Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce in addressing these challenges and states that Scottish government will also commission a review into Mental Health Nursing in Scotland, which will consider what more needs to be done to attract, grow, support and develop the mental health nursing workforce and leadership. While welcoming the review, RCN Scotland is clear that this must produce fully funded actions to retain and recruit mental health nurses.
Given the current mental health nursing workforce crisis, it is disappointing that the new Workforce Action Plan doesn’t set out costings as the RCN has called for.
The recent Audit Scotland report into adult mental health provision highlighted that vacancies for mental health nurses have more than doubled between March 2017 and March 2023, and the turnover rate has reached a record high.
Almost nine per cent of registered mental health nurse posts within NHS Scotland were vacant at the end of June 2023 and in recent years the number of people choosing to study mental health nursing has failed to fill the number of funded places at Scotland’s universities.
Eileen McKenna, Associate Director for Nursing, Policy and Professional Practice, RCN Scotland said:
“Demand for mental health services continues to increase. The review into Mental Health Nursing in Scotland provides much needed recognition of the role nursing plays in Scotland’s mental health services. Mental health nurses are highly skilled clinicians working across acute and community services and there simply aren’t enough of them.
“Scottish government must ensure their review aligns with the work of the Ministerial Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce. These are critical for achieving a mental health nursing workforce that can meet increasing need and must deliver positive change for nursing staff and the people they care for.”
