The Scottish Government has never met its target for young people to begin mental health treatment within 18 weeks in the 10 years since it was introduced.
Freedom of Information Requests from the Scottish Lib Dems show that the mental health target has been missed for least 43,000 young people. It has been missed by more than four million days in total.
The Lib Dems said the SNP should “invest in driving down waiting times so that we can install more counsellors in schools and roll out more mental health professionals in schools.”
The Scottish Government set a target for young people to begin mental health treatment within 18 weeks in December 2014.
Since April 2019, the 18-week treatment time target has been missed by a cumulative 4.2m days. This includes 420,000 days last year alone and 134,000 days in 2024/25 so far.
NHS Borders, Highland, Lanarkshire and Orkney had all missed waiting time targets much more than before the pandemic.
In NHS Borders, waiting time target breaches are now more than ten times higher, rising from 1,680 days in 2019/20 to 18,200 days in 2023/24. NHS Lothian has recorded 1.3m days of treatment time breaches since April 2019.
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: “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.
“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 near to you.
“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.”
Mental Wellbeing Minister Maree Todd said: “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% of patients starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral.
“The waiting list for treatment is now at its lowest point since 2013, with 1 in 2 children and young people referred now starting treatment within 6 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% 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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