The GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service is not therapy or counselling. The service provides a more appropriate response to people in distress who do not require a medical or clinical assessment. We won’t give you advice or tell you what to do. Instead, we give you a safe space to be heard and supported and to talk about your thoughts and feelings.

Talking can help. Together, we may find ways to reduce your distress. We can also help signpost you to other services that offer the right support for you or someone you care about.

How to access the GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service

Sometimes it’s hard to talk to friends or family. You might feel no one understands or that people will judge you. Talking might do a loved one some good but they’re too proud to do it. That’s why we’re here.

The GAMH team will respond compassionately without judgement. The Compassionate Distress Response Service will try to help you make sense of how you feel and think about what might help you feel better. You’re not alone on the path to mental health recovery.

To use the GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service, you or your loved one must be:

• 16 or over; and
• Living in Glasgow at the time of their distress.

If you’re aged 16 to 25 (or 26 if care experienced), please visit our for Young People section.

Young people aged 14 to 15: We are extending the Young People’s pathway to include 14 and 15 year olds only, from May 2026 until March 2027.

This service is limited to the following referral sources:

• Specialist Children’s Services
• Youth Health Service
• Social Work Services
• Staff at secondary schools where an agreement is in place.

Young People will receive a response within 24 hours during normal service hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).

You can’t refer yourself to the GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service, but you can ask your GP (Doctor) or Social Worker to refer you or a loved one.

Once we get their referral, we’ll try to call you within 24 hours.

If you need urgent help, please go to the Get help now section.

GPS and their multi-disciplinary practice teams can refer people aged 16 or over. Here’s how:

• Use SCI Gateway or call us
• Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Referrals outside these times will be picked up the next working day. We aim to respond within 24 hours.

Compassionate Distress Response Service Out of Hours can also support people aged 16 or over from:

• First responders
• Mental Health Assessment Units
• Police Scotland
• British Transport Police
• Out of ours GP services
• Scottish Ambulance Service
• Adult Mental Health Services
• Emergency departments within Queen Elizabeth University Hospital and Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

By phone or referral form, every day from 5pm to 2am.

Please download the GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service Referral Criteria and Pathways (PDF) for more details.

Please note: Members of the public cannot refer themselves or others.

In 2019, an NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde multi agency distress collaborative recommended an alternative, non-clinical response to people experiencing distress. The collaborative defined distress as “an emotional state, not an illness, which is expressed and comes to our attention when a person’s internal capacities and external supports cannot contain something.”

The GAMH Compassionate Distress Response Service (CDRS) opened in May 2020 as a way to help people in Glasgow on the path to mental health recovery. Funding supports the Service to deliver on parts of Scotland’s Mental Health Strategy (2017-2027).

The service now accepts referrals from both General Practice and Out of hours services. This also includes an enhanced pathway for 16- to 25-year-olds, funded by the Community Mental Health Supports and Services framework.