Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times
Quarter ending 30 June 2021
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 07 September 2021
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times for the quarter to 30 June 2021.
NHS boards made changes to their service delivery in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. All NHS boards have advised that the measures put in place have had an impact on their figures. More information can be found in the data quality document.
Please note NHS Fife resubmitted their referrals data from October 2018. Revised data are shown within this publication.
An update of referrals data from the Child, Adolescent, and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND) has been published as an appendix to the main report.
Main points
For the quarter ending June 2021:
- 4,552 children and young people started treatment at CAMHS in Scotland. This is an increase of 11.1% from the 4,096 starting treatment from the previous quarter, and an increase of 28.3% from the 3,548 starting treatment in the same quarter the previous year.
- Over seven out of ten (72.6%) of children and young people were seen within 18 weeks, which compares similarly to 72.4% for the previous quarter, and an increase from 61.7% for the quarter ending June 2020. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS.
- One in two of the children and young people seen started their treatment within seven weeks, which is a decrease from nine weeks in the previous quarter, and also from the same quarter the previous year where one in two of children and young people were seen within 13 weeks.
- Across Scotland, around one in seven patients (14.1%) referred to CAMHS did not attend their first appointment. This is a decrease from the previous quarter of 16.9% but an increase from the same quarter ending June 2020, where 13.6% did not attend their first appointment.
- 10,193 children and young people were referred to CAMHS in Scotland for quarter ending June 2021 which is the highest in the trend. This compares to 7,883 for the previous quarter, and 4,052 for the quarter ending June 2020.
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 7 December 2021.
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Older versions of this publication
Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.