Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending December 2025
An Official Statistics publication for Scotland
- Published
- 03 March 2026 (Latest release)
- Type
- Statistical report
- Author
- Public Health Scotland
About this release
This quarterly release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on how long people of all ages waited to start a Psychological Therapies (PT) treatment in NHS Scotland for the quarter ending December 2025.
This publication presents Official statistics derived from the aggregate national data collection on PT waiting times, which is the currently most reliable source of PT waiting times data. These data should not be compared to the developing PT data presented in the statistics in development patient level Child, Adolescent, and Psychological Therapies National Dataset (CAPTND), due to the ongoing quality and completeness issues with CAPTND.
Unless otherwise stated, this publication presents adjusted waiting times data from October 2024 to December 2025. See the Data Quality Document for more information on adjustments and how periods of patient unavailability are considered.
Main points
In the quarter ending December 2025:
- 82.1% of people started treatment within 18 weeks of referral, which is an increase from 80.7% in the previous quarter, and an increase from 80.4% for the quarter ending December 2024. The Scottish Government standard states that 90% of people should start their treatment within 18 weeks of referral to PT. The chart below illustrates performance in relation to this target over the past 4 years.
- 18,489 people started PT treatment. This is a decrease of 1.2% (232) from the 18,721 starting treatment in the previous quarter, but a 3.9% (690) increase from 17,799 patients who started treatment in the quarter ending December 2024.
- Half of those starting treatment started within 2 weeks of referral. This is a decrease from half starting treatment within 3 weeks in both the previous quarter, and the quarter ending December 2024.
- Over the 5 quarters (Oct 24-Dec 25) reported in this publication, the proportion of patients aged 65+ seen within the 0–18-week target has been less than for those in the general PT cohort (all ages, including 65+). Of the 1,497 people aged 65+ who started treatment in this quarter, 77.0% were seen within 18 weeks of referral. This is an increase from 76.7% of 1,291 patients seen within 18 weeks in the previous quarter, and an increase from 75.4% of 1,409 seen in the quarter ending December 2024.
- A total of 28,527 people (of all ages) were referred for PT in the quarter ending December 2025 (see the Data Quality Document for individual board commentaries). This is a decrease of 3.4% (1,003) from the 29,530 referrals in the previous quarter but a decrease of 2.7% (781) from 29,308 referrals in the same quarter ending December 2024.
Background
PT refer to a range of interventions, based on psychological concepts and theory, which are designed to help people understand and make changes to their thinking, behaviour and relationships in order to relieve distress and to improve functioning. The Scottish Government Standard applies specifically to a PT treatment of a mental illness or disorder provided across health boards in NHS Scotland.
Further information
The next release of this publication will be 2 June 2026.
General enquiries
If you have an enquiry relating to this publication, please contact Santiago Nieva at phs.psychtherapies@phs.scot.
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Older versions of this publication
Versions of this publication released before 16 March 2020 may be found on the Data and Intelligence, Health Protection Scotland or Improving Health websites.