National drug and alcohol treatment waiting times
1 October - 31 December 2019
A National Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 31 March 2020
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Information Services Division (ISD) reports on the waiting times for people accessing drug and alcohol treatment services between July and September 2019. It contains information on the number of people seen for treatment, types of treatment accessed and length of time waited. The Scottish Government set a standard that 90% of people referred for help with their drug or alcohol problem will wait no longer than three weeks for treatment that supports their recovery.
Main points
- 95% of the 9,171 people who started their first drug or alcohol treatment during the quarter waited 3 weeks or less, with quarterly trends demonstrating consistent performance in recent years.
- 95.1% of the 5,012 people seeking alcohol treatment waited 3 weeks or less.
- 95% of the 4,159 people seeking drug treatment waited 3 weeks or less.
- For the 2,173 people who were still waiting to start drug or alcohol treatment at the end of the quarter, 10.8% had been waiting for more than 6 weeks.
- 92.5% of the 796 people in prison who started their first drug or alcohol treatment between October and December 2019 waited 3 weeks or less.
- 39.6% of the 101 people in prison still waiting to start drug or alcohol treatment at the end of the quarter had been waiting for more than 6 weeks.
Background
The data in this publication is a snapshot of a dynamic database. This means that data for previous quarters may not be the same as found in previous publications for the same time period. Updated data for the most recent quarter is provisional and may be revised in future publications.
Further information
Find out more in the full report. The data from this publication is available to download from this page. Open data is available from the Scottish Health and Social Care open data portal (external website). Other relevant ISD publications can be found on the drugs and alcohol use pages of the website (external website).
The Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) provides information on various aspects of drug use in Scotland: ScotPHO drug misuse section (external website).
The next release of this publication will be 30 June 2020.
General enquiries
If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please email phs.datwt@phs.scot.
Media enquiries
If you have a media enquiry relating to this publication, please contact the Communications and Engagement team.
Requesting other formats and reporting issues
If you require publications or documents in other formats, please email phs.otherformats@phs.scot.
To report any issues with a publication, please email phs.generalpublications@phs.scot.
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.