About the guide

Everyone has a legal right to participate in decisions about their healthcare, as outlined by the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and the Health and Social Care Standards: My support, my life.

Many people with lived/living experience of mental health challenges experience stigma and discrimination when trying to access, or when they are engaging with, different services. They, in turn, feel compelled to influence change and improve these services to prevent others going through the same, and to improve their own future experiences as well. Such negative experiences should be seen as a breach of rights; they are unjust and lead to inequalities that, in turn, worsen mental health for those individuals. Equally, it is logical that people who use a service are best placed to provide feedback on this experience, and what would help improve access and support for them, but potentially for others too.

Before you can effectively influence change, it’s important to understand how services are structured and organised, how relationships and power dynamics function, and where imbalances of power may be addressed.

This guide is for anyone looking to improve the access and quality of care and support in healthcare services for those experiencing poor mental health or specific mental health challenges. You can used this as an individual, as a direct supporter or as a group/organisation organising collectively. It can apply to any level of the healthcare system, from your local dentist to national policy and law.

This guide aims to provide easy to follow, step-by-step guidance and resources to support people with lived/living experience of mental health challenges in communities, to challenge mental health stigma and discrimination in healthcare.

The guide is split in three sections; two sections with key advice and guidance, and a section pulling out additional tools and resources that will come in handy in your influencing journey:

Understanding the basics provides an essential overview of how healthcare works in Scotland, helping you grasp the context and framework for effective advocacy. It introduces mental health stigma and discrimination, its impact on people accessing and receiving care and treatment, as well as how to influence services to become free from stigma and anti-discriminatory.

Taking Action in Six Steps sets out six steps to taking action in challenging mental health stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings. Each step provides key information, advice, and guidance, as well as top tips and links to help you get to what you need fast.

Additional Tools and Resources pulls together resources for taking your influencing further by supporting your action. It also contains signposting information to other organisations, advice on how to stay well during the influencing journey, and much more.

While the guide can be read as a whole, each of the sections can also be read independently. You can start wherever suits you; if you have a good understanding of healthcare in Scotland and are eager to take action, you can start with “Taking Action in Six Steps”. On the other hand, if you think you need to get a better sense of the landscape you want to influence, the “Understanding the basics” section should help with that. However you decide to use it, you can certainly dip in and out of the content as you need.

Whilst this guide offers to simplify steps to take action, it is important to be mindful of the emotional impact influencing activity can have sometimes unexpectedly. Throughout we will have endeavoured to remind you to plan for your wellbeing and how you can support this. Regardless of the best plans in self-care and support, the impact of trauma and the potential for re-traumatisation need to be understood.