Pictured: Maree Todd, Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport

The Distress Brief Intervention programme (DBI), which was set up to improve the response to people presenting to frontline service in distress, has now provided support to over 50,000 people who were referred for help.

Background

The Scottish Government launched the DBI Programme in 2016, and the very first referral was from Hairmyres hospital in South Lanarkshire in June 2017.  Since then the DBI Programme has grown across Scotland from the initial pilot areas of Lanarkshire, Aberdeen, Inverness and Scottish Borders, to include a growing associate programme, with local pathways now live in 23 of the 31 Health & Social Care Partnerships, and the remainder planning to go live by March 2024.

The DBI programme was developed into a national programme in 2020 with the NHS 24 extension, which enables NHS24’s Mental Health Hub to offer a DBI referral and connected compassionate support for all areas across Scotland. Since then, the national extension has expanded to include call handling centres operated by the Scottish Ambulance Service and Police Scotland, who can also make referrals to DBI.

The DBI programme is available for those aged 16 and over as standard.  There is also a small scale controlled pilot test of DBI currently underway for children and young people under 16 years of age, which has been live since 2021.

These combined developments have led to the DBI programme growing to the point that there are now over 1,700 referrals across Scotland per month, with the 50,000 referral landmark being surpassed in September 2023.

What is DBI?

DBI is a non-clinical intervention, consisting of two interrelated parts.  Level 1 sees trained front-line staff help ease the person’s distress, provide a compassionate response and where appropriate, involves an offer of a referral to a DBI Level 2 service.  The referral pathways for the first 50,000 DBI referrals have included Primary Care, NHS 24, ED Departments, Police Scotland, Scottish Ambulance Service, Mental Health Unscheduled Care Services, Education, Social Work and CAMHS.  There are 8 third sector DBI level 2 providers across Scotland (Penumbra, Change Mental Health, SAMH, LAMH, GAMH, Lifelink, The Richmond Fellowship Scotland, and Orkney Blide Trust), and the trained and dedicated staff in these third sector organisations contact the person within 24-hours of referral and provide community-based problem solving support, wellness and distress management planning, supported connections and signposting for all of the people referred to DBI from 2017 onwards.

Mental Wellbeing Minister Maree Todd said:

“This milestone is a remarkable achievement and includes over 16,000 referrals via the NHS24 pathway which we launched in 2020 as part of our wider response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is incredible to hear that 50,000 people have been referred for help and I hope that this has made a difference to them.

“Distress Brief Intervention is a crucial part of the wide range of actions we are taking to improve public mental health and wellbeing. We have committed to introducing the programme to all NHS Board areas by March 2024 and are well on track to achieve that target. I look forward to continuing to work with our partners as we move towards that goal.”

Kevin O’Neill, Scottish Government National Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) Programme Manager, said: “Reaching the landmark of 50,000 referrals to DBI represents incredible collaboration between, and commitment from, our health and social care, emergency service and third sector colleagues across Scotland. I thank everyone involved in empowering more front line and third sector colleagues to deliver connected compassionate support, enabling more people across Scotland to receive it, with a commitment for further growth.”

Professor Rory O’Connor from the University of Glasgow’s School of Health & Wellbeing and President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, whose team are responsible for the development and delivery of the DBI level 1 and level 2 training, said: “This is a remarkable landmark.  When DBI went live in 2017, we could not have foreseen how quickly it would grow and crucially provide compassionate and immediate support for tens of thousands of people in distress in six short years. DBI is a huge team effort, but particular thanks to the frontline staff who work tirelessly every day to make a difference in their communities up and down the country.”