Children wait more than 1,000 days for mental health treatment

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today said that Scotland needs world-class mental health services after research by his party uncovered shocking waits for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) across many of Scotland’s health boards.

Scottish Liberal Democrat freedom of information requests to health boards reveal that:

• Patients in NHS Lothian, NHS Highland, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Orkney are currently waiting more than a year to be seen by CAMHS. The longest a patient has been waiting is 1,100 days in NHS Lothian.
• The same health boards also saw patients waiting more than a year to start treatment in 2023/24. The longest a patient waited was 1,600 days in NHS Lothian, while a patient waited 1,086 days in NHS Lanarkshire.
• 35 patients in NHS Highland and 16 patients in NHS Lothian waited more than two years to start CAMHS treatment.
• At least 52 patients in NHS Lothian, 33 patients in NHS Highland, 10 patients in NHS Lanarkshire and 25 patients in NHS Orkney are currently waiting more than a year to start CAMHS treatment.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said:

“If children and young people are waiting years for help, their mental health will simply deteriorate.

“The SNP have spent 17 years ignoring the scale of the mental health crisis. They have repeatedly raided tens of millions from the mental health budget, adding to the agony of everyone waiting to be seen.

“Scottish Liberal Democrats are the party of mental health. We want to drive down waiting times by installing more counsellors in schools and rolling out more specialists in GP surgeries and A&E departments near to you.

“Scotland deserves world-class mental health services. That’s why my party will continue to put pressure on the government to ensure everyone struggling receives the support and care they need.”