Isles mental health waiting list “horrific”

The information was sourced from a campaigner on mental health issues who has long argued that psychological services remain the "Cinderella service of the NHS” and particularly so in rural areas, where there is often difficulty in accessing specialised treatments.

A request was made to each health board in Scotland asking for their waiting lists for psychological treatment at the start of April. It took some weeks for all the boards to respond and for all the information to be collated.

In their response, NHS Western Isles said there are “124 patients aged 18 or older who are currently waiting for psychological therapy treatment”.

They added: “Please note the waiting list validation for the latest month end data has not been fully completed yet and a small number of these waits may drop off the waiting list when all the appointment outcomes for the previous month have to be completed.”

This is far higher than Orkney, for example, who had a waiting list of just 54 on the 14th April and Shetland who had 89.

Highland NHS, which covers a far larger area and a much higher population, had 702, while Glasgow, Scotland’s largest, had 3,733.

Speaking to the Gazette, campaigner Peter Todd, who lives in Thurso, said: “As a patient who was forced to wait five barbaric years back in 2018 these horrific figures don't surprise me, because mental health services are treated as the Cinderella service of the NHS by our illustrious leaders.

“Consequently this means patients end up in A&E departments, GP surgeries and police cells - which are not the correct place for individuals desperately requiring psychological treatment to be.”

Mr Todd called on Scottish Government First Minister John Swinney to intervene and to directly “speak to patients who have their lives torn apart by waiting years for treatment”.

An NHS Western Isles spokesperson said: “Challenges in recruitment to our psychology posts has regrettably resulted in longer waits in the Western Isles. We are however pleased to confirm that we were successful in appointing one psychologist last month and we will shortly be interviewing for a second post.

“It is also important to clarify that different Health Boards have different referral criteria which means some services have a higher threshold for accepting referrals, than the Western Isles.”