Question reference: S6W-05454
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 5 January 2022
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Current status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 27 January 2022
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to reduce waiting times for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to improving Mental Health services and the Programme for Government commits to ensuring that by the end of this Parliament, a minimum 10% of frontline NHS spend goes towards mental health, with at least 1% going towards child and adolescent mental health services.
We also remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of children and young people begin treatment within 18 weeks of referral. We have allocated nearly £40m additional funding in 2021-22 to NHS Boards to improve CAMHS from our £120m Recovery and Renewal fund. £4.25m of that allocation is directly focussed on offering treatment to those already on CAMHS waiting lists, with a view to clearing all backlogs by March 2023.
We are closely monitoring those NHS Boards with significant performance challenges and supporting the continuous development of their detailed local improvement plans. The creation of these plans is further supported with direct enhanced support from subject matter experts and the sharing of best practice. This support is centred around and supported by the implementation of the CAMHS national service specification which outlines the expectations of the quality of care that families can expect.
NHS Boards who are receiving this enhanced support have provided trajectories to meet the 90% waiting times standard and we are using these to monitor and drive improvements within CAMHS.