Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times
Quarter ending September 2022
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 06 December 2022
- 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 ending September 2022. As of June 2022, CAMHS data is available via an interactive dashboard.
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.
An update of referrals data from the experimental Child, Adolescent and Psychological
Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND) has been published alongside this publication.
Main points
For the quarter ending September 2022:
- 67.9% of children and young people were seen within 18 weeks of referral, which is a decrease from 68.3% for the previous quarter and 78.3% for the same quarter ending September 2021. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS.
- 4,990 children and young people started treatment at CAMHS in Scotland. This is a decrease of 4.1% from the 5,205 starting treatment in the previous quarter but an increase of 30.2% from the 3,833 starting treatment in the quarter ending September 2021.
- One in two of the children and young people seen started their treatment within an average of 10 weeks, which is the same as the previous quarter but an increase from an average of 7 weeks for quarter ending September 2021.
- 8,331 children and young people were waiting to start treatment at quarter ending September 2022 compared to 9,729 for the previous quarter and 11,785 for the same quarter ending September 2021.
- 8,548 children and young people were referred to CAMHS in Scotland for quarter ending September 2022. This compares to 9,215 for the previous quarter and 7,882 for the same quarter ending September 2021.
Percentage of patients who started treatment in CAMHS within 18 weeks of referral, by quarter for March 2018 - September 2022
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 07 March 2023.
General enquiries
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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.