A Rutherglen councillor is among those calling for action to improve mental health treatment time targets for children and young people.
Freedom of Information (FOI) requests by the Scottish Liberal Democrats revealed that the Scottish Government’s mental health treatment time target for children and young people has been breached by a cumulative 4.2 million days since 2019 – with NHS Lanarkshire amongst the health boards showing waiting time target breaches increasing significantly from pre-pandemic levels.
In December 2014, the Scottish Government set a target for young people to begin mental health treatment within 18 weeks, but since then the target has never been met.
Councillor Robert Brown, who represents the Rutherglen South ward and is Liberal Democrat Group Leader on South Lanarkshire Council, claims that since April 2019 the 18-week treatment time target had been breached by a cumulative 4,233,120 days, including 421,138 days during 2023/24 and 134,468 days in 2024/25 so far.
Councillor Brown added: “Few things are more distressing than seeing children and young people, and their families, struggle with health issues, not least mental health.
The SNP’s failed NHS Recovery Plan promised to clear mental health waiting lists by March 2023. Nearly two years on and these statistics show that promise wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. To be fair the position in Lanarkshire has improved this year – but from a record high in 2022/3.
For every child and young person struggling, these waits must feel like a lifetime. Nobody should ever have to endure that.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats are the party of mental health. We want to invest in driving down waiting times so that we can install more counsellors in schools and roll out more mental health professionals in GP surgeries and A&E departments.
“The SNP haven’t met the waiting targets once in the 10 years since they were introduced. It’s time to put an end to years of failure.”
The Scottish Government claim there are inaccuracies in the quoted figures and insist that overall CAMHS waiting list decreased by more than 20 per cent in the previous year. And that over the same time, children waiting over 18 weeks decreased by over 10 per cent, and children waiting over 52 weeks decreased by 21.8 per cent.
Mental Wellbeing Minister Maree Todd said: “The Scottish Government does not recognise the figures quoted. The latest figures show the best national performance against the mental health treatment time target for children and young people since the standard was introduced in 2014, with 89.1 per cent of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral.
“The waiting list for treatment is now at its lowest point since 2013, with one in two children and young people referred now starting treatment within six weeks, compared to 12 weeks pre-pandemic. This has been made possible by the hard work of the dedicated workforce, which has increased by 59.1 per cent in the last decade of this government.
“Despite the significant progress made across the system, we are not complacent. We continue to be clear that long waits are unacceptable. That is why, even with the continuing fiscal challenges we face, we have made the decision to increase the draft mental health budget for next financial year so that we can build on our improvements.”
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