Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) waiting times
Quarter ending September 2023
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 05 December 2023
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update of how long people waited to start treatment with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in NHS Scotland for the quarter ending September 2023.
As of June 2022, CAMHS data are available via an interactive dashboard.
CAMHS are multi-disciplinary teams that provide treatment and/or interventions for children and young people experiencing mental health problems. Where a child or young person is awaiting an assessment for a neurodevelopmental condition such as ASD, or ADHD, they may not be appropriate for CAMHS because they do not meet the National Referral Criteria as described in the CAMHS national service specification, and may instead be referred onto a neurodevelopmental (ND) pathway. It should be noted that this release does not report on the neurodevelopmental (ND) pathway including those children and young people on the neurodevelopmental waiting list.
Main points
For the quarter ending September 2023:
- 75.6% of children and young people were seen within 18 weeks of referral, which is an increase from 73.8% for the previous quarter and from the 67.9% for the same quarter ending September 2022. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS.
- 4,686 children and young people started treatment at CAMHS in Scotland. This is a decrease of 8.0% from the 5,093 starting treatment in the previous quarter, and of 6.8% from the 5,026 starting treatment in the quarter ending September 2022.
- 50% of the children and young people starting treatment started within 10 weeks of referral, which is a decrease from 11 weeks in the previous quarter and the same as 10 weeks for quarter ending September 2022.
- 5,344 children and young people were waiting to start treatment at quarter ending September 2023 which is a decrease of 19.8% (1,323) compared to 6,667 in the previous quarter, and a decrease of 36.3% (3,041) from 8,385 for the same quarter ending September 2022.
- 8,204 children and young people were referred to CAMHS in Scotland for quarter ending September 2023. This is a 13.9% (1,321) drop from 9,525 compared to the previous quarter, and a decrease of 4.4% (380) from 8,584 for the same quarter ending September 2022
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 5 March 2024.
General enquiries
If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please contact Brendan de Moor at phs.camh@phs.scot.
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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.