Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending December 2022
An Official Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 07 March 2023
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on how long people waited to start treatment with psychological therapies in NHS Scotland for the quarter ending December 2022. As of June 2022, psychological therapies data is available via an interactive dashboard.
An update of referrals data from the experimental Child, Adolescent, and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND) has been published alongside this publication.
Main points
For the quarter ending December 2022:
- 81.1% of people started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, compared to 80.7% of people for the previous quarter, and 84.8% of people for the quarter ending December 2021. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of people should start their treatment within 18 weeks of referral to psychological therapies.
- 50% of the people starting treatment started within 2 weeks of referral.
Percentage of patients who started treatment in psychological therapy within 18 weeks of referral, by quarter for March 2018 - December 2022, NHS Scotland
- 18,090 people started psychological therapies treatment in NHS Boards in the quarter ending December 2022. This is an increase of 0.3% (63) from the previous quarter and an increase of 0.1% (18) from the quarter ending December 2021.
- 1,339 people aged 65+ years started treatment with psychological therapies in this quarter. 78.6% started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, a decrease from both 81.2% in the previous quarter and 86.0% for the quarter ending December 2021.
- A total of 38,191 people were referred for psychological therapies (and in some cases further adult mental health services) in Scotland in this quarter (see the Data Quality Document). This compares to 38,192 people referred in the previous quarter and a 6.6% (2,689) decrease from the same quarter ending December 2021 (40,880 referrals).
Background
Waiting times information for psychological therapies is still being developed. NHS Boards are working with PHS and the Scottish Government to improve the consistency and completeness of the information.
Psychological therapies 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.
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 06 June 2023.
General enquiries
If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please email phs.psychtherapies@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.