Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending June 2024

An Official Statistics publication for Scotland

Published: 03 September 2024 (Latest release)
Type: Statistical report
Author: Public Health Scotland

Mental health
Waiting times

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 June 2024.

Main points

For the quarter ending June 2024:

80.2% of people of all ages started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, compared to 79.3% of people for the previous quarter, and 78.8% of people for the quarter ending June 2023. 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 of all ages starting treatment started within 4 weeks of referral, which is the same as the previous quarter and for quarter ending June 2023.

Chart 1. it shows a trend line for the percentage of patients who started treatment in psychological therapy within 18 weeks of referral in Scotland. The time period is in quarters and covers from quarter ending June 2020 to quarter ending June 2024 — Image caption **Percentage of patients of all ages who started treatment in PT within 18 weeks of referral, by quarter for June 2020 - June 2024, NHSScotland**

19,369 people of all ages started PT treatment in an NHS board in the quarter ending June 2024. This is an increase of 3.2% (593) from the previous quarter, and an increase of 5.0% (919) from the quarter ending June 2023.
1,482 people aged 65+ years started treatment with psychological therapies in this quarter. 73.2% started their treatment within 18 weeks of referral, a decrease from 77.8% in the previous quarter and from 81.6% for the quarter ending June 2023.
A total of 29,982 people of all ages 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 is an increase of 3.8% (1,107) from 28,875 people referred in the previous quarter and a 25.1% (10,042) decrease from 40,024 referrals in the same quarter ending June 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

Waiting times information for psychological therapies is still being developed. Health 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.

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. Please see the Data Quality Document for more information.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 3 December 2024.

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.