A child could be referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for a range of reasons.
These can include serious mental health problems, self-harming or eating disorders, or other common mental health issues such as ADHD, anxiety or depression.
New figures show that about 3,400 children started treatment at CAMHS services in Scotland in the quarter ending June 2014, though these official figures exclude NHS Lothian and NHS Highland, so the true figure will presumably be higher.
The numbers referred to CAMHS are higher still - more than 6,000 young people between April and June this year. However, not all of those would-be patients were ultimately judged to need specialist mental health services. Almost exactly one-fifth of all referrals from GPs and other sources were rejected, NHS Scotland figures show.
The biggest issue raised by these new figures, though, is not about who starts services but when. The current official target is for all health boards to deliver specialist CAMHS services to those who require them within 26 weeks of referral. From December, the Government has decided, no-one should have to wait more than 18 weeks. Most health boards are quite some way from meeting the first target, let alone the second.
In NHS Ayrshire and Arran, only 41.6 per cent of children are seen within 18 weeks and 53.2 per cent within 26 weeks.
Only 61.3 per cent are seen within 18 weeks in NHS Grampian, and one- quarter of patients there and in NHS Tayside are not seen within 26 weeks.
Other boards fare better, but on average across the country, one in 10 patients has to wait more than 26 weeks and nearly one in five has to wait more than 18.
A shortage of resources in CAMHS has long been acknowledged, including a lack of specialist staff include psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and occupational therapists. The Government committed funding to increasing the workforce across CAMHS in 2009 and since then the number of full time posts has increased from 765 to 925. Yet only five out 13 senior specialist posts for doctors in child and adolescent psychiatry were filled in the most recent national recruitment round.
Campaign group the Scottish Children's Services Coalition (SCSC) says the situation is alarming, and argues the recruitment figures suggest young people who need CAMHS services will not just miss out now, but also in two or three years' time, due to a lack of recruitment now.
Sophie Pilgrim from Kindred Scotland, speaking for SCSC, said the new figures compounded existing concerns. "We are at a crisis point and high-level strategic management is required in order to get a grip on the situation," she said.
The coalition's stance is being backed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland (RCPS) , which has co-signed a letter to Health Secretary Alex Neil calling for action.
An RCPS spokesman said: "We share the SCSC concerns and will be working with Scottish Government and NHS Education for Scotland, to try and find solutions to this worsening problem."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article