Twenty-one young people have been turned away from a specialist mental health clinic due to a lack of beds, the Public Health Minister has revealed.
Maureen Watt said the patients could not be admitted to Dudhope Young People's Unit in Dundee as it would have been "clinically unsafe" to do so.
The Liberal Democrats, who obtained the figures in a parliamentary question, said the revelation is "astounding" and highlights the need for more specialist units.
Lib Dem health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "Children are already expected to travel hundreds of miles from Stornoway and Dingwall to a hospital in Dundee for mental health care.
"Now we find out that the lack of resources at this new unit has caused many to be told to go elsewhere. They could be treated even further away from home, privately or in wards that are less suited to their needs.
"This shows the urgent need to invest in CAMHS, train and give staff the support they need, and establish new specialist mental health units north of Dundee.
"We need a step change in mental health to guarantee there are beds close to home when children desperately need them and to end the scandal of children waiting over a year for treatment."
Mr Cole-Hamilton asked how many children were subsequently admitted to alternative inpatient units in Edinburgh and Glasgow, treated on adult wards, or not admitted at all.
Ms Watt said children "will generally be treated in the community" but "there may be times when it is necessary to admit them to hospital for specialist mental health treatment".
She added: "Should this be the case they would be admitted to one of the three regional child and adolescent mental health inpatient units, or the national unit for under-12s.
"Requests may come from outwith the region because, while the three units work on a regional basis, each unit will also consider requests from the other regions.
"Children and young people may initially be admitted to one unit and then transferred to another; they may also be admitted to a non-NHS facility or a non-specialist NHS facility and then transfer to Dudhope, or be discharged to the community, or complete their treatment in that facility.
"Reasons for this may include bed availability, a clinical decision, or the preference of a young person and their family.
"Over the period May 2015 to May 2016, there were 21 occasions when a young person could not be admitted to Dudhope Young Persons Unit (YPU) due to the unavailability of a bed.
"On two occasions the request was for a bed for a young person who resided outside the north of Scotland region, whilst the remaining 19 occasions were requests to admit young people residing in the north of Scotland region.
"The reason for beds being unavailable is either due to the unit being at full capacity (no physical beds available) or high patient dependency, making it clinically unsafe to admit any further patients."
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 here