Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending December 2024
An Official Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 04 March 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 December 2024.
Note this document reports on the official PT collection and waiting times. Data should not be compared to the PT data presented in the statistics in development patient level Child, Adolescent, and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND).
Main points
For the quarter ending December 2024:
- 80.4% of people of all ages started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, compared to 80.0% of people for the previous quarter, and 80.6% of people for the quarter ending December 2023. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of people should start their treatment within 18 weeks of referral to PT.
- 50% of people of all ages starting PT treatment started within 3 weeks of referral, which is the same as the previous quarter and for quarter ending December 2023.
- 17,799 people of all ages started PT treatment in an NHS board in the quarter ending December 2024. This is a decrease of 2.3% (412) from the previous quarter, and of 3.6% (664) from the quarter ending December 2023.
- 1,409 people aged 65+ years started treatment with PT in this quarter. 75.4% started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, an increase from 74.0% in the previous quarter but a decrease from 80.4% for the quarter ending December 2023.
- A total of 29,506 people of all ages were referred for PT (and in some cases further adult mental health services ) in NHSScotland in this quarter (see the Data Quality Document). This is an increase of 2.3% (652) from 28,854 people referred in the previous quarter but a 14.5% (5,005) decrease from 34,511 referrals in the same quarter ending December 2023. Please note that the decrease in referrals is mostly due to a methodology change in reporting referrals at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
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 3 June 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.