The Scottish Mental Health Service for Deaf People provides specialist support throughout Scotland but is hosted by NHS Lothian.
The service provides:
- Advice on local management of deaf people with moderate or severe mental health problems which present challenges in assessment and/or treatment across Scotland
- Assessment and/or treatment of patients at request of or in liaison with local clinicians on an outreach basis
- Advice/assessment of the possible requirement for specialist inpatient treatment
- Provision of training in deaf awareness and deaf mental health issues for mental health professionals.
Following referral, patients are seen by an Advanced Nurse Practitioner on an individual basis for assessment of mental state and diagnosis in complex cases. Following that the following may be offered:
- Specific time limited treatment
- Support for local teams in providing direct patient care
- Advice given regarding further treatment and signposting to local deaf organisations
- Assessment of patients for inpatient treatment in the John Denmark Unit – National Centre for Mental Health and Deafness
- Liaison with inpatient team and facilitation and support for discharge.
C.M & D.I – 20-7-26
How to refer:
Referrals can be made in writing, and referral forms can be obtained by downloading the referral form and emailing that to loth.mhdeafservice@nhs.scot. GPs may wish to refer to the locality mental health services first.
The team administrator can also be contacted on 01506 523 671: this phone line is for professionals only – telephone calls to discuss possible referrals are always welcome.
Please see for Scottish Mental Health Service for Deaf People for further detail on referral processes.
- British Society of Mental Health and Deafness www.bsmhd.org.uk
- Deaf Action www.deafaction.org.
- North East Sensory Service www.nesensoryservices.org.
- Hearing Link www.hearinglink.org
- Contact Scotland BSL Contact Scotland (contactscotland-bsl.org)
- Royal National Institute for Deaf People RNID www.rnid.org.uk
- Mental Health Self Help Leaflets in BSL available at https://web.ntw.nhs.uk/selfhelp/
- Breathing Space https://breathingspace.scot/other-languages-and-formats/british-sign-language-bsl/
- Sign Health https://www.signhealth.org.uk/
- British Deaf Association https://bda.org.uk
- Crisis text support Text: DEAF to 85258 https://www.giveusashout.org/get-help/
