Mental health: policy context

"A Scotland where we have good mental wellbeing" is one of Scotland's public health priorities.

The Scottish Government published its Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy in June 2023. The Strategy concentrates on achieving a number of different population-level and process outcomes for mental health and wellbeing, by focusing on three key areas:

• Promote positive mental health and wellbeing for the whole population, improving understanding and tackling stigma, inequality and discrimination;
• Prevent mental health issues occurring or escalating and tackle underlying causes, adversities and inequalities wherever possible;
• Provide mental health and wellbeing support and care, ensuring people and communities can access the right information, skills, services and opportunities in the right place at the right time, using a person-centred approach.

In November 2023, the Scottish Government published the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy: Delivery Plan 2023-2025. This outlines ten strategic actions required to achieve all short-term outcomes outlined in the Strategy.

This builds upon previous policy and research frameworks including: the Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027; the Mental Health Strategy 2012-2015; Creating Hope Together: suicide prevention strategy 2022 to 2032; Scotland’s Self-Harm Strategy and Action Plan (2023-27); the Scottish Strategy for Autism (856Kb); the Learning Disability strategy “the keys to life”; Dementia in Scotland: Everyone’s Story; Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2017-2020; Alcohol Framework 2018: Preventing Harm (510kB); and The Road to Recovery: a new approach to tackling Scotland’s drug problem (5.4MB).

A broad range of factors, including poverty, employment, income, and welfare reform, impact mental health. A WHO report on the Social Determinants of Mental Health(2024kB) (2014) examines the social determinants of common mental health disorders and outlines preventative action that can be taken. A 2022 study found that, for adults aged 16 and over, persistent precarious employment was strongly associated with risk of poor mental health symptoms. Similarly, many aspects of welfare reform since 2008 have been associated with worsening mental health. Further information can be found on the ScotPHO Welfare Reform pages.

Public Health Scotland maintain a suite of resources on mental health and wellbeing. 

See Key references and evidence for other relevant mental health policy documents and initiatives.