1. Introduction
This Statistics Release presents for the second time, information in regard to Mental Health Officers ( MHOs) in Scotland as official statistics.
Previous figures have been presented as newsletter articles. The 2007/08 survey results were published in issue 19 of the Mental Health Officers in Scotland newsletter, which can be found at: http://www.socialworkscotland.org.uk/resources/2009/mhonewsletter19.pdf
The survey data used in this report has been collected annually since 2005, at Local Authority level. The survey has been developed each year with new questions being added when a need for further information has been identified. There was a substantial under count of staffing in 2005, due to managers working as MHOs not being included, this report will present data from the 2006 survey onwards.
The aim of the survey is to collect information about the number of qualified MHOs who are practising within Scotland on the 31 st March for a given year. Practising is defined as using legislation directly in relation to working with clients, or potentially using legislation directly in relation to clients e.g. serving on rotas, during the previous 12 months.
A Mental Health Officer ( MHO):
- is a qualified Social Worker with at least two years experience, who has completed a further years study on Mental Disorder and the related Law to achieve accreditation.
- has a range of statutory duties under the Criminal Procedure (Consequential Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1995, the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Mental Health (Care and Treatment)(Scotland) Act 2003.
- can work as either part of a specialist mental health team, or are integrated into a multidisciplinary (non-mental health specialist) teams. MHOs are responsible for making decisions about admissions to hospital for people who, in their judgement, pose a risk to themselves or others.
This release presents the results of the latest survey to give a picture of:
- The number of practising MHOs in post at 31st March 2010.
- The workload undertaken by MHOs.