Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending March 2024
An Official Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 03 June 2025 (Latest release)
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on how long people of all ages waited to start treatment with Psychological Therapies (PT) in NHSScotland for the quarter ending March 2025.
This publication presents Official Statistics derived from the aggregate national data collection on PT waiting times, and is to be considered as the most reliable source of PT waiting times data. Due to the ongoing data quality and completeness issues, these data should not be compared to the developing PT data presented in the statistics in development patient level Child, Adolescent, and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND).
Main points
For the quarter ending March 2025:
- 19,136 people started PT treatment. This is an increase of 7.5% (1,337) from the previous quarter, and of 1.9% (354) from the quarter ending March 2024.
- 78.6% of people started their PT treatment within 18 weeks of referral, compared to 80.4% of people for the previous quarter, and 79.2% of people for the quarter ending March 2024. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of people should start their treatment within 18 weeks of referral to PT. The chart below illustrates performance in relation to this target over the past 4 years.
- 50% of people starting PT treatment started within 3 weeks of referral, which is the same as the previous quarter. In the period ending March 2024, fifty percent began treatment within four weeks of referral.
- Of the 1,499 people aged 65+ who started treatment in this quarter, 71.8% were seen within 18 weeks of referral, a decrease from 75.4% in the previous quarter and from 77.8% for the quarter ending March 2024. The proportion of patients aged 65+ seen within the 18 week target is less than for those in the general PT cohort.
- A total of 30,319 people were referred for PT in this quarter (see the Data Quality Document). This is an increase of 3.4% (1,011) from 29,308 referrals in the previous quarter and of 5.8% (1,674) from 28,645 referrals in the same quarter ending March 2024.
Background
PT refer to a range of interventions, based on psychological concepts and theory, which are designed to help people understand and make changes to their thinking, behaviour and relationships in order to relieve distress and to improve functioning. The standard applies specifically to psychological therapies for treatment of a mental illness or disorder.
Please note from November 2023, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde report in accordance with PHS updated Psychological therapies and interventions waiting times standard and definitions released in September 2023. This update has resulted in a reduction of the number of PT referrals being reported. NHS GG&C are unable to revise historic data for previous overcounting. More detail about this change can found in the Data Quality Document for more information.
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 2 September 2025.
General enquiries
If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please contact Santiago Nieva at phs.psychtherapies@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.