SASW's summer of consultations

The SASW team has been busy this summer responding to several important consultations.

In July, we gave our views to the Mental Health Law Review on their additional proposals for changes to mental health and incapacity law. This included on advance statements, independent advocacy and how criminal law and mental health law work together. We hope our feedback will be part of the final report given to Scottish Ministers in September. Read our response here.  

We have added our support for two Private Member's Bills to be introduced to parliament. These are proposed by backbench MSPs who are not members of the government. Jeremy Balfour MSP is proposing to create the role of a Disability Commissioner for Scotland while Paul Sweeney MSP is introducing legislation to establish overdose prevention centres. We believe that both Bills will have a positive impact and look forward to following their progress through parliament. Read our responses below.

• Disability Commissioner (Scotland) Bill
• Drug Death Prevention (Scotland) Bill

Finally, we submitted views to the Scottish Government on their proposed Data Strategy for Health and Social Care. We outlined what we think the new strategy should include, with a focus on systems, processes, ethics and transparency which is backed up with appropriate access to training and resources. The strategy is expected to be published by the end of 2022. Read our response here.

What's Next?

Our priority this month is developing our response to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee's call for views on the National Care Service Bill. The deadline for responses is 2 September. You can submit your own response to the committee. All details about the Bill and how you can contribute to SASW's response can be found on our NCS hub.

For all matters relating to SASW's consultation responses, please contact our Policy Officer on jonny.adamson@basw.co.uk