Children’s mental health target missed by 4.2 million days since 2019

Local Liberal Democrats are demanding urgent action to combat Scotland’s mental health emergency. Freedom of Information requests by the Scottish Liberal Democrats have revealed that the SNP Government’s mental health treatment time target for children and young people has been breached by a cumulative 4.2 million days since 2019 – with NHS Lanarkshire amongst the health boards showing waiting time target breaches increasing significantly from pre-pandemic levels.

In December 2014, the Scottish Government set a target for young people to begin mental health treatment within 18 weeks. The Scottish Government has never met this target.

Councillor Robert Brown, Liberal Democrat Group Leader on South Lanarkshire Council said that since April 2019, the 18-week treatment time target had been breached by a cumulative 4,233,120 days, including 421,138 days last year alone and 134,468 days in 2024/25 so far.

Robert Brown went on:

“Few things are more distressing than seeing children and young people, and their families, struggle with health issues, not least mental health.

The SNP’s failed NHS Recovery Plan promised to clear mental health waiting lists by March 2023. Nearly two years on and these statistics show that promise wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. To be fair the position in Lanarkshire has improved this year – but from a record high in 2022/3.

For every child and young person struggling, these waits must feel like a lifetime. Nobody should ever have to endure that.

Scottish Liberal Democrats are the party of mental health. We want to invest in driving down waiting times so that we can install more counsellors in schools and roll out more mental health professionals in GP surgeries and A&E departments.  

The SNP haven’t met the waiting targets once in the 10 years since they were introduced. It’s time to put an end to years of failure.”