Extra cash to help child mental health services

Child mental health services in Tayside, Fife and Highland have been getting special help to try to tackle waiting times.

Ministers revealed they were among seven areas receiving “enhanced support”, including £4.25 million to help those on waiting lists.

Official figures for the last quarter of 2021 show 70% of youngsters were seen within the target time, down from 78% in the previous quarter.

The figures included more than 300 waiting longer than a year for help.

The Scottish Government aims for 90% of children and young people to be starting treatment within 18 weeks of referral to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

NHS Tayside and NHS Grampian were among only a handful of boards to meet the 90% target, recording rates of 93% and 95% respectively.

Tayside had been under 90% in the three preceding quarters, however, and the majority of other board areas remained significantly below the target.

In Highland, the data also showed more than 11% of its referrals, or 27 youngsters, had been waiting more than a year.

Following questions at Holyrood, Mental Wellbeing Minister Kevin Stewart said: “NHS Borders, Fife, Forth Valley, Highland, Lanarkshire,

Lothian and Tayside have all been receiving enhanced support to meet the waiting times standard and eliminate long waits by end March 2023.”

Mr Stewart said £40m had been allocated to NHS boards to improve CAMHS from the government’s £120m mental health recovery and renewal fund, which includes £4.25m for treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists.

Scottish Conservative public health spokeswoman Tess White said: “This funding won’t nearly be enough to help a generation of youngsters suffering from mental health issues who have repeatedly been failed by this SNP government.

“Funding must be increased to ensure young people who need treatment and support receive it as quickly as possible.”

A spokeswoman for NHS Tayside said: “We work closely with the Scottish Government’s mental health quality and safety team which supports the CAMHS team to implement a range of improvement plans to help meet the waiting time standard.

“The government team also recognises and shares good practice from NHS Tayside with CAMHS teams in other health boards.

“We are working to improve waiting times and additional nursing and allied health professional staff have recently been recruited to increase service capacity over the coming months.”

Rona Laskowski, head of critical care services at Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, said Fife continued to benefit from the additional support provided through the Scottish Government’s CAMHS adviser.

A spokesman for NHS Highland said CAMHS and psychology services in the area had “longer waiting times than we would like for some time now”.

He said: “The Scottish Government’s recovery and renewal fund has allocated considerable funding to improve mental health services and improvement work is well under way.”