The Edinburgh Integration Joint Board (EIJB) will make a decision on Edinburgh’s community mental health funding at their meeting on 26th August 2025. We were told in May that Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership had recommended that the board withdraw funding from our Collective Advocacy work, meaning that 82% of Collective Advocacy at CAPS would have been lost, you can read more about this here. CAPS has now received their final recommendations to be put before the EIJB on 26th August for them to approve, or not.
The recommendations
CAPS’ Edinburgh Collective Advocacy recommendation is that the contract should remain at its current funding level for now. There is to be a recommissioning exercise, and providers, including CAPS, will be part of the process. The NHS Lothian wide Collective Advocacy work is also to continue as is and be included in the Advocacy recommissioning exercise. This includes Experiences of Personality Disorder, Experiences of Psychosis, Experiences of Trauma, Experiences of Eating Disorders, Oor Mad History and Lothian Voices.
Unfortunately, the recommendation for our other projects, funded by Thrive: Arts as Advocacy (OOSOOM); The Peer Forum; LGBTQIA+ Collective Advocacy and Minority Ethnic Collective Advocacy is to not renew the contracts when they come to an end on 30 November 2025. The EIJB may not actually approve this recommendation so it is not yet certain that these projects will end.
Hundreds of people with mental health issues have their voices heard by exhibiting in the OOSOOM (Out of Sight Out of Mind) exhibition every year and their work is seen by thousands of people. You can read more about what it means to people with experience of mental health issues in their testimonial here. The LGBTQIA+ Collective Advocacy and Minority Ethnic Collective Advocacy groups provide a space for some of Edinburgh’s most marginalised communities to have their voices heard. They also educate mental health professionals about how to provide a better service to people from these communities. Read more in the LGBTQIA+ group’s testimonial here. And the Minority Ethnic group’s testimonial here.
Our ask
Our focus will now be to defend these projects in the run up to the 26th August. We would like to see an amendment to the recommendations that proposes that instead of ending the funding for these projects in November they should be included in a Thrive recommissioning exercise. We want to make sure that the Integration Joint Board do not make a hasty decision with long term negative consequences and instead undertake a robust consideration of the benefits of these projects, as part of the wider “Thrive” community mental health supports available to the people of Edinburgh.
Thank you to all those who have sent messages of support for CAPS’ projects. We really appreciate your help and we will continue to gather your testimonials.
Read more testimonials here.