Here’s an NHS target achieved which they won’t tell you about – 90% of young people now begin mental health treatment on time in Scotland – 100% in Glasgow!

By stewartb

The Scottish Parliament Information Service (SPICe) has compiled time series data on the performance of NHS Scotland against the following target: ’90% of young people should begin treatment for specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health services within 18 weeks of referral.’

See https://spice-spotlight.scot/health-performance/

In graphs with data back to Quarter 1, 2025, SPICe shows that the poorest performance for Scotland overall was in Q2 2020 when just 61.7% of referrals began treatment within 18 weeks. Since then there has been steady improvement: in line with the main blog post, during Q4 2025 (the latest period charted by SPICe), the Scotland figure is 90%.

However, even this 90% compliance figure underplays what has been achieved by health boards. Below are the board level performance figures for Q4 2025: Lothian is an outlier and of course, will impact negatively on the overall Scotland figure.

Ayrshire & Arran = 100% started treatment within 18 weeks

Forth Valley = 100%

Greater Glasgow & Clyde = 100%

Orkney = 100% Shetland = 100%

Western Isles = 100%

Borders = 98.3%

FIfe = 97.9%

Grampian = 97.4%

Tayside = 97.1%

Lanarkshire = 96.3%

Highland = 88.4%

Dumfries & Galloway = 81.4%

Lothian = 62.9%.

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One thought on “Here’s an NHS target achieved which they won’t tell you about – 90% of young people now begin mental health treatment on time in Scotland – 100% in Glasgow!”

  1. A large section of Mr Wes Streeting’s letter of resignation comprised an impressive list of improvements achieved by health services in England. As my daughter, other family members and friends live in England, I find the data reassuring.

    Of course there are still issues to be addressed in England, but progress should be recognised. And, it is the lack of recognition of the achievements of NHS Scotland by the media and the unionist parties in Scotland that, rightly, is pointed out repeatedly by this site.

    With the panic gripping the media and unionist parties because of the success of the SNP in Scotland and PC in Wales and Project Fear being cranked up again, we can expect a torrent of decontextualised selective ‘bad’ data about any aspect of health provision in Scotland. They want people to suffer so that they can blame Scotland.

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