We're failing our children

Mum tells of eight-year ordeal with autistic girl. | MSP's bid for guaranteed wait time and funds.

- MARCELLO MEGA

CHILDREN across Scotland are waiting years to access mental health services, figures have shown.

Freedom of information requests to NHS health boards found some young people waited more than 1000 days for support.

In 2024-25, a patient in NHS Highland waited 1189 days for treatment with Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Patients also waited over a year at NHS Ayrshire and Arran, the Borders, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lothian and Lanarkshire, with one waiting more than two years.

In NHS Tayside, a patient has been waiting 1137 days to start treatment.

Scots Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said long waits could damage children's mental health. He said: "The SNP have spent the last two decades ignoring the scale of the mental health crisis. Their failures are plain to see in all those children waiting months and years for the treatment they need.

"Making children and young people wait years for help only worsens their mental health - it is a sure-fire way to add to their pain.

"Scottish Liberal Democrats are the party of mental health.

"We want to drive down waiting times by installing more counsellors in schools and rolling out more specialists in GP surgeries and A&E departments near to you." One mum told of the torrid time she endured when raising her autistic daughter and the battle she had with education and health services.

Catherine Simpson struggled for eight years to get a diagnosis for daughter Nina.

Now she hopes her book Hold Fast: Motherhood, My Autistic Daughter and Me, will offer some hope to parents who are struggling now.