National drug and alcohol treatment waiting times
1 July 2025 to 30 September 2025

About this release

This quarterly release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on waiting times for people accessing specialist drug and alcohol treatment services between 1 July 2025 and 30 September 2025. Treatment services report to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs), which are multi-agency groups tasked by the Scottish Government with tackling alcohol and drug issues through partnership working. Data are presented by NHS Board of treatment. Trend data for selected indicators are available in the publication dashboard.

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.

Data from Shetland Islands ADP and South Lanarkshire ADP have been excluded from this release. Shetland Islands ADP was unable to confirm that their data were accurate and up-to-date within the specified timescale. South Lanarkshire ADP did not meet the minimum expected referral threshold, as set out in the Data Quality document. This means that NHS Board level data are unavailable for NHS Shetland and are limited for NHS Lanarkshire. Among the remaining areas, four out of 186 specialist treatment services were excluded from this release due to incomplete data. Findings reported here refer only to those services who provided complete data.

See the Data Quality document for more information.

Main points

During the quarter ending 30 September 2025:

• 11,444 referrals were made to community-based specialist drug and alcohol treatment services: 5,369 (46.9%) were for problematic use of alcohol, 4,409 (38.5%) for problematic use of drugs, and 1,666 (14.6%) for co-dependency (problematic use of both alcohol and drugs).
• 7,050 referrals to community-based services started treatment. Of these, 6,674 (94.7%) involved a wait of three weeks or less. Two NHS Boards did not meet the Standard (Lothian, 88.5%; Highland, 87.6%).
• Nationally, the Standard was met for referrals to community-based services across all substances: drugs (96.6%), co-dependency (94.6%) and alcohol (93.3%).
• 775 referrals were made to prison-based services. Of these, 618 (79.7%) were for people seeking help for problematic use of drugs, 116 (15.0%) for co-dependency and 41 (5.3%) for problematic use of alcohol.
• 326 referrals to prison-based services started treatment. Of these, 306 (93.9%) involved a wait of three weeks or less. Two out of nine NHS Boards with prison-based services did not meet the Standard (Tayside, 88.5%; Grampian, 74.1%).
• Nationally, the Standard was met for referrals to prison-based services across all substances: co-dependency (98.6%), alcohol (96.3%) and drugs (92.1%).

As of 30 September 2025:

• 2,236 community-based service referrals had not started treatment. Of these, 420 (18.7%) involved a wait of more than three weeks.
• 20 prison-based service referrals had not started treatment. Of these, three (15.0%) involved a wait of more than three weeks.

Bar chart illustrating the percentage of community referrals completed within three weeks against the Standard of 90% for each NHS Board in the quarter ending 30 September 2025. Scotland overall achieved 94.7%. Two NHS Boards did not meet the Standard with Lothian at 88.5% and Highland at 87.6%.

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Percentage of completed community referrals with a wait of three weeks or less, by NHS Board (1 July 2025 to 30 September 2025)

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. DAISy has been available in all NHS Boards from April 2021 and replaced two previous systems: the DATWT database and the Scottish Drug Misuse Database (SDMD).

DAISy and its predecessors hold data in relation to specialist drug and alcohol treatments and waiting times from services throughout Scotland delivering tier 3 and 4 specialist drug and alcohol interventions, namely structured community, and residential treatment. These treatments are provided by services in 30 Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) across Scotland, who submit data to PHS through a secure web system.

For more information on publication context, terminology, metadata and early access details, see the Background Information document.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 31 March 2026.