NHS Scotland beat a waiting times target for the second time in a row despite increased demand – how will the media spin this to get SNPBad?

Professor John Robertson OBA

I’m ahead of BBC Scotland, as I write at 11.02am, but I can smell them scurrying around, phoning someone who can be trusted to say the statistics, the same stats they trust when targets are missed, are not reliable in some way based on their wee personal experience.

This is a major achievement which deserves so much more. The staff deserve praise but may not get it other than here and in other sympathetic social media.

From Public Health Scotland today:

91.6% of people started treatment within 18 weeks of referral, which is an increase from 90.6% for the previous quarter and from 86.0% for the same quarter ending March 2024. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of children and young people should start treatment within 18 weeks of referral to CAMHS. The chart below illustrates performance in relation to this target over the past 4 years and shows that the target was first achieved in quarter ending December 2024.

4,674 children and young people were on a waiting list to start treatment in CAMHS at quarter ending March 2025 which is an increase of 7.0% (305) compared to 4,369 in the previous quarter.

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times/child-and-adolescent-mental-health-services-camhs-waiting-times-quarter-ending-march-2025/

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