Nearly 2,000 young patients left waiting a year or more for specialist mental health care in Scotland

Care providers are warning of a ‘potential lost generation of vulnerable children’ after the number of patients waiting that long for help north of the border doubled in just 12 months, Andy Gregory reports

Scotland’s health secretary Humza Yousaf looks on as Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks in Holyrood (Fraser Bremner - Pool/Getty Images)

Nearly 2,000 children and teenagers have been left waiting for specialist mental health care for at least a year in Scotland, according to official figures branded “damning” by psychiatrists.

New NHS Scotland data has revealed that, at the end of September, there were 1,978 patients who had been waiting 52 weeks or more for a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) appointment.

That is more than double the 959 young people who were waiting that long the previous September – despite efforts by Nicola Sturgeon’s government to meet its own 2023 target for 90 per cent of young people to receive help within 18 weeks.