The last few months have been extremely busy for the officers and staff of the College in Scotland. In October, a number of members attended the SNP Party Conference and held a Fringe event on “Care of Patients with Dementia in General Hospitals” chaired by Ms Shona Robison MSP, Minister for Public Health and Sport. This generated a lot of interest and included speakers from Old Age Psychiatry, Geriatrics and Alzheimer’s Scotland. Older People has been our theme for all the Party Conferences this year and the launch of the Dementia Strategy earlier this year has brought the topic into focus.

In the Scottish Parliament, several Bills relating to mental health are making their way through the process. High-ranking doctors, police officers and celebrities were among 165 prominent people from across Scotland who signed a public statement calling on MSPs to set a minimum price for alcohol, including our Chair, Dr Peter Rice. The BMA took the ground-breaking step of taking out a full page advert in the Sunday Herald to show the strength of support for minimum pricing. It didn’t stop opposition parties voting down that part of the Alcohol (Scotland) Bill on 10 November. All other parts of the Bill were passed. 

End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill has been debated in recent months. We are grateful to members in the Liaison Psychiatry section for their help in gathering written and appearing as expert witnesses in front of the Health Committee.

The Autism (Scotland) Bill was introduced to Parliament in May by Mr Hugh O’Donnell MSP.

The Cross Party Groups on Mental Health and Alzheimer’s continue to be active and well attended with a variety of topics being covered. Any member wishing to attend meetings of either group should contact Karen Addie. 

The staff organising events in Scotland have had their hands full this autumn. Besides the very enjoyable residential meeting in Nairn in September, they have organised meetings for the Philosophy Special Interest Group, Rehabilitation Section, Old Age Section, Liaison Section and a 2 day-course for senior trainees on Teaching Skills. The Psychotherapy Section has their annual residential course later in November and the CAMHs Section are soon meeting in Glasgow. A meeting for those members who are retired, but still working in some capacity, has been organised for 7 December in Edinburgh.

Finally, the College in Scotland is now looking towards May 2011 and the Scottish Elections. We will be preparing a short ‘manifesto’ for parliamentary candidates, which we are planning to use this as our theme for next years’ party conferences.  Watch out for the manifesto on our webpages soon.