Mental Health Officers Survey, Scotland 2010-11
Thursday, 07 July 2011 15:49
The Scottish Government has recently published the first national statistics on Mental Health Officers in Scotland.
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 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.
The report provides an overview of the MHO workforce as at March 2011. Key findings are:
- There are 727 MHOs in Scotland as of March 2011.
- Approximately 70% of MHOs are aged 45 or over.
- A total of 51 MHOs left the workforce in 2010/11, of which 43.1% of MHOs left due to retirement and 27.5% of MHOs resigned.
- The number of unfilled "exclusive" MHO vacancies has increased by 28% between 2010–2011.
The report also contains detailed statistics on the workload of MHOs: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/352635/0118631.pdf
