A second charity football match in aid of a young Dundee dad who took his own life after suffering from depression is to be held in the summer.
Lee Welsh, 27, was found dead at his Peddie Street home in the city’s West End in August 2017.
At the time, his dad Phil said that Lee, whose daughter Poppy was then aged seven, had battled mental health issues for the previous nine years.
Last year Lee’s childhood friend, Steve Martin organised a football match in memory of his mate which raised more than £1,000 for the Dundee Association for Mental Health (DAMH).
The event was so successful that a second one has been organised for July 20 this year.
It will be held at North End Park and this time the money raised will be donated to Art Angel on behalf of the Not in Vain for Lee charity.
As well as football there will be other attractions on the day including a bouncy castle, face and henna painting, a pipe band, live music and a demonstration by Dundee Mods Scooter Club.
Phil – who has actively raised awareness about mental health issues among young people since his son’s death – was thrilled with the turnout and the money raised last year.
He said: “It really was an absolutely brilliant day.
“We hope we can get the same response this year.
“It’s all about looking to the future now in raising money for our mental health charities.”
Suicide rates in Dundee are higher than any other city council area in Scotland, according to a new report.
The Scottish Suicide Information Database also shows that men accounted for three-quarters of suicides across Tayside in the last seven years.
According to the report, there were 164 deaths caused by suicide in Dundee with an average of 16.7 per 100,000 population between 2011 and 2017.
Angus along with Perth and Kinross Councils recorded 98 and 126 suicides respectively.
For Tayside as a whole, 388 suicides were recorded with an average per 100,000 population of 14.1.
Men were more likely to take their own lives, with the rates across Scotland highest among those aged 35-54 and in deprived areas.
Nearly three-quarters of those who died had contact with healthcare services in the year before their death.
An inquiry is currently under way into NHS Tayside’s mental health services after a number of concerns surrounding the Carseview Centre.
Phil Welsh, whose 28-year-old son Lee took his own life last year, said the latest statistics were “damning”.
He said: “It’s clear that there’s a situation here that isn’t working.
“I think the fact there is an inquiry shows there’s something amiss.
“Mental health is a discussion point now but it’s all well talking, we need support for people afterwards and that is why we badly need a crisis centre.”
A spokeswoman from NHS Health Scotland said: “National suicide prevention programmes need to incorporate a comprehensive public health approach which seeks to reduce stigma, improve mental wellbeing in the whole population and address the underlying causes of poor mental health.”
Bosses at the health board aim to get rid of 1,300 posts to plug the hole in its finances, official papers revealed.
They say they can do that over several years through “natural staff turnover”, but it is feared cuts to backroom staffing will have an impact on patients.
The decision to shrink the workforce comes as the board benefits from having at least £62 million of debt written off by the Scottish Government.
The plans are revealed in an assurance report to the board from September.
It said there was an “acceptance that staff levels need to reduce by 10%”.
Gillian Murray, who has been campaigning for better mental health services after failings in the care of her late uncle, said the decision shows that “balancing the books obviously means more to them than saving lives”.
“People in Dundee are dying because NHS Tayside is a shambles and to cut the workforce is another slap in the face for all of us,” she added.
Murdo Fraser, the Conservative MSP in Perthshire, said: “Local people will be wondering what impact these massive reductions in staff will have on their already pressured services.”
Annie Ingram, NHS Tayside director of workforce, said no one will lose their job but said spending on the workforce is higher than health boards of a similar size.
She added: “We are carrying out a review of staff numbers, grades and skills, which is being carried out in partnership with our staff and our trades unions, to ensure we have a safe, affordable and sustainable workforce.”
The NHS in Scotland is not financially sustainable and its performance has continued to decline, the public spending watchdog has warned.
Audit Scotland said health boards were “struggling to break even” and none had met all of the key national targets – with NHS Lothian not meeting any.
It highlighted increasing demand on NHS services, and rising waiting lists.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the government was already taking forward Audit Scotland’s recommendations.
But the watchdog’s report prompted widespread criticism of the Scottish government, with the Conservatives claiming it should “make shameful reading for the SNP”.
The report said pressure is building in several areas – including the recruitment and retention of staff, rising drug costs, Brexit and a significant maintenance backlog.
It said “decisive action” was needed to protect the “vital and valued service”.‘
What does the report say?
The report warned that the NHS in Scotland is “not in a financially sustainable position”, with NHS boards “struggling to break even, relying increasingly on Scottish government loans and one-off savings”.
And it said the “declining performance against national standards indicates the stress NHS boards are under”.
The only target met nationally in 2017/18 was for drugs and patients to be seen within three weeks.
Only three of Scotland’s regional health boards met the target for patients beginning cancer treatment within 62 days of being referred
The Scottish government admitted earlier this year that children were being “let down” by the country’s mental health services
The proportion of youngsters seen by CAMHS within 18 weeks fell from 83.6% in 2016/17 to 71.2% in 2017/18.
The Scottish government invested £13.1bn in NHS services last year, but Audit Scotland said when inflation was taken into account there was a 0.2% real terms drop in cash.
Health boards made “unprecedented” savings of £449.1m, but many relied heavily on one-off savings for this, while three boards – NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Highland and NHS Tayside – needed £50.7 million of loan funding from the government to break even.
This was “significantly more” than in previous years, with Audit Scotland saying four boards have predicted they will need a combined total of £70.9m in this current financial year.
Jeane Freeman announced a three-year plan to cut NHS waiting times earlier this week
The report said the “NHS is managing to maintain the overall quality of care, but it is coming under increasing pressure”, adding Brexit would create “additional challenges” for the health service.
However the scale of these challenges was “difficult to assess” because of “significant uncertainty” over the terms of the UK’s withdrawal deal from the European Union, and because data on workforce nationality is not routinely collected.
Auditor General Caroline Gardner said: “The performance of the NHS continues to decline, while demands on the service from Scotland’s ageing population are growing.
“The solutions lie in changing how healthcare is accessed and delivered, but progress is too slow.”
What has the Scottish government said in response?
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said the government was already taking forward Audit Scotland’s recommendations.
She said NHS funding had reached “record levels of more than £13bn this year, supporting substantial increases in frontline NHS staffing, as well as increases in patient satisfaction, reductions in mortality rates, falls in healthcare associated infections, and Scotland’s A&E performance has been the best across the UK for more than three years.”
She added: “While our NHS faces challenges, common with health systems across the world, we are implementing a new waiting times improvement plan to direct £850m of investment over the next three years to deliver substantial and sustainable improvements to performance, and significantly improve the experience of patients waiting to be seen or treated.
“Ultimately we want to ensure people can continue to look forward to a healthier future with access to a health and social care system that continues to deliver the world-class compassionate care Scotland is known for.”
What other reaction has there been?
Conservative health spokesman Miles Briggs claimed the NHS was “facing an unprecedented challenge” with boards across the country “staring into a black hole of more than £130m.
He said: “For a government which has been in charge for more than 11 years, this should make shameful reading for the SNP.”
Labour’s Monica Lennon added: “After more than a decade of SNP complacency our NHS is in crisis.”
Dr Lewis Morrison, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Scotland, said the “stark warning” from Audit Scotland “could not be any blunter”.
But he added this would “come as no surprise to frontline doctors who have faced the consequences of inadequate funding year after year”.
And RCN Scotland director Theresa Fyffe said the report “underlines what those in the nursing profession have been warning about for a number of years – an unsustainable pressure on staff to deliver more care.
“This leads to staff burnout and, in some cases, a choice between staying in the profession and their own health.”
The group of walkers heading off to raise awareness A walk across the Tay Road Bridge in support of people suffering from mental issues was so successful it’s going to be held twice a week.
One of the organisers, Ash Mullen, said eight people took part in last night’s walk and many more were promising to take part in future walks.
Ash and her friend Paula O’Neill organised the walk as part of their Let’s Talk Tayside campaign.
The two student nurses have formed the group in a bid to get people talking about their mental health concerns.
Ash said: “We thought the walk would be a good idea to highlight the number of people who go to the bridge when they are feeling suicidal.
“Paula and myself are overwhelmed with the support we have received so far.
“We now plan to hold the walk twice weekly and would love as many people as possible to join us.
“We are very proud of what the people of Dundee are doing to help themselves and others. More than 2,000 people have now joined our group in just a week.
“We want Dundee to become known for how supportive we are of our own communities.”
Drug use to tackle mental health conditions in Tayside and Fife has rocketed by nearly two-thirds, it has been revealed.
NHS Tayside has increased its use of anti-depressants by more than 73% since 2007/8, while treatments for psychosis and related disorders have risen by 42%.
Pharmacies under the health board handed out nearly twice as much dementia medication, an extra 95%, and there was also an increase in the number of doses used to treat ADHD of nearly 175%.
NHS Fife recorded a slower rise in every treatment type except anti-depressants, where there was an increase of more than 90%. However, it experienced an overall rise of nearly 65%.
Only hypnotics doses decreased, with a drop of nearly 11% for Tayside and just over 2% for Fife. NHS Tayside, which paid out nearly £9.5 million for mental health drugs last year, an increase of more than 37% on 2016/17, insisted drug therapy can be important to recovery.
A spokeswoman said: “Increased levels of identification and diagnosis of mental health conditions, including dementia, means that more patients are accessing important treatments that can improve quality of life.”
Drug use to tackle mental health conditions in Tayside and Fife has rocketed by nearly two-thirds, it has been revealed.