Children still waiting more than a year for mental health care 

Following shocking new figures which show children are still waiting more than a year for mental health treatment, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said his party is focused on fighting for change with fairness at its heart and delivering world-class mental health services.

Scottish Liberal Democrat freedom of information requests to health boards reveal that: 

• In NHS Lothian, NHS Highland, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Forth Valley, there were children who waited longer than a year to start treatment.
• 81 children in NHS Lothian waited over 14 months to start treatment in 2025/26.
• The longest a child waited to start treatment was 648 days in NHS Highland and 565 days in NHS Lanarkshire. 
• The longest waiting time for children currently waiting to start treatment is 455 days in NHS Borders and 578 days in NHS Lanarkshire. 

Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP said: 

“This reveals the brutal extent of Scotland’s mental health crisis, a crisis which the SNP have spent the last two decades ignoring. 

“The Scottish Government have so far chosen to spin the mental health emergency rather than solve it, failing to acknowledge the number of children whose referrals for treatment are being rejected by the system that ministers put in place. 

“Action is long overdue. Making children wait over a year for help risks problems spiralling.

“It’s why Scottish Liberal Democrats used the election campaign to talk about recruiting and retaining more mental health staff and providing new walk-in services for those in crisis. 

“With more MSPs and more seats, Scottish Liberal Democrats will be fighting to make those plans a reality in the coming weeks and months, delivering a vision for change with fairness at its heart.”