National drug and alcohol treatment waiting times
1 April 2023 to 30 June 2023

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on waiting times for people accessing specialist drug and alcohol treatment services between 1 April and 30 June 2023. In 2011, the Scottish Government set a Standard that 90% of people referred for help with problematic drug or alcohol use will wait no longer than three weeks for specialist treatment that supports their recovery. Amongst Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADP), four services out of 204 were excluded due to the absence of complete data. This release includes annual data for the 2022/23 financial year and introduces a new drug and alcohol treatment waiting times dashboard.

Main points

During the quarter ending 30 June 2023:

• 11,230 referrals were made to community-based specialist drug and alcohol treatment services: 5,835 (52%) were for problematic use of alcohol, 4,179 (37%) for problematic use of drugs, and 1,216 (11%) for co-dependency.
• 7,850 referrals to community-based services started treatment during the quarter. Overall, 93% involved a wait of three weeks or less. Ten of the 14 NHS Boards met the Standard and four did not (Highland, 88%; Lothian, 87%; Fife, 86%; and Western Isles, 82%).
• Nationally, the Standard was met for referrals to community-based services across all substances: co-dependency (95%), problematic use of drugs (94%), and alcohol (92%).
• The most common treatments commenced during the quarter at community-based services were structured preparatory interventions (49% to 53% across substance types), and community-based support and/or rehabilitation (33 to 43% across substance types).
• 874 referrals were made to prison-based services during the quarter. Of these, 701 (80%) were in relation to the problematic use of drugs.
• 391 referrals to prison-based services started treatment during the quarter. Of these, 95% involved a wait of three weeks or less (co-dependency, 98%; alcohol, 97%; drugs, 93%).  

At 30 June 2023:

• 2,433 community treatment referrals had not started treatment. Of these, 401 (16%) involved a wait of more than three weeks.

Bar chart illustrates each NHS Board’s percentage of community referrals completed within three weeks against a Standard of 90% in the quarter ending June 2023. Scotland overall has a completion rate of 93%. NHS Highland (88%), NHS Lothian (87%), NHS Fife (86%) and NHS Western Isles (82%) did not meet the Standard for all substance types during this quarter. The chart shows that the remaining 10 NHS Boards that submitted data each have between 93% and 100% of referrals completed within three weeks.

Close

Percentage of completed community referrals with a wait of three weeks or less, by NHS Board (1 April 2023 to 30 June 2023)

Background

These data were extracted from the Drug and Alcohol Information System (DAISy) and its predecessor the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Waiting Times (DATWT) database.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 19 December 2023.