Access to child mental health services uninterrupted by pandemic

The report examined mental health services during the pandemic (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Access to psychological therapy and child mental health services was “relatively uninterrupted” by the pandemic, a study has found.

The Public Health Scotland (PHS) report examined outpatient mental health services between January 2020 and December 2022.

Referrals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) saw a steep fall at the start of the pandemic before increasing later in 2020 and the following years.

Psychological therapies (PT), which are available to all ages, saw a similar decrease at the onset of the pandemic before recovering and remaining steady at about 13,000 a month into 2021 and 2022.

Waiting times for both services also saw an initial increase but this was described as “moderate”.

A summary of the report said: “All Scottish NHS health boards quickly adapted their CAMHS and PT delivery models to accommodate the Covid-19 social restrictions.

“Therefore, patient access to these services was relatively uninterrupted.”

It continued: “Referrals to both CAMHS and PT services increased between 2020 and 2022, with no noticeable reduction in the proportion of referrals accepted into services.”

The report noted video and telephone consultations for PT services, which rose during the pandemic, still remain popular.

A separate report from PHS in March found that CAMHS waiting times in 2023 had seen an improvement on previous years, while remaining below the target levels.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “These figures reflect the hard work of CAMHS and psychological therapies staff to ensure the safe and effective delivery of mental health services during the Covid pandemic and beyond.

“Through our recovery and renewal fund, we invested £120 million to increase capacity across NHS services and deliver improvements in both CAMHS and psychological therapies.

“As a result, CAMHS workforce has increased by 40% since March 2020 and psychological therapies workforce by 32%.

“We continue to see significant and sustained progress on CAMHS waiting times – the national performance against the target is the fourth highest since records began, and the highest achieved since quarter ending March 2016.

“In addition, we see improvements in psychological therapies waiting times over the last year.

“The lates figures show that long waiting times have decreased by 36.4% in comparison with last year, and that one in two people referred to psychological therapies start treatment within three weeks.”