Psychological therapies waiting times
Quarter ending September 2025

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 September 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 data from July 2024 to September 2025. See the data quality document for more information on adjustments and how periods of patient unavailability are considered.

Main points

For the quarter ending September 2025:

• 80.7% of people started treatment within 18 weeks of referral, which is an increase from 78.3% in the previous quarter, and an increase from 80.0% for the quarter ending September 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.
• 18,706 people started PT treatment. This is a decrease of 2.7% (522) from the 19,228 starting treatment in the previous quarter, but a 2.7% (495) increase from 18,211 patients who started treatment in the quarter ending September 2024.
• Half of those starting treatment started within 3 weeks of referral. This is an increase from half starting treatment within 4 weeks in the previous quarter, and the same for the quarter ending September 2024.
• Of the 1,291 people aged 65+ who started treatment in this quarter, 76.7% were seen within 18 weeks of referral. This is an increase from 67.4% of 1,456 patients seen within 18 weeks in the previous quarter, and an increase from 74.0% of 1,383 seen in the quarter ending September 2024.  Over the 5 quarters (Jul 24-Sept25) 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+).
• A total of 29,530 people (of all ages) were referred for PT in the quarter ending September 2025 (see the data quality document for individual board commentaries). This is an increase of 0.2% (51) from the 29,479 referrals in the previous quarter and an increase of 3.0% (850) from 28,680 referrals in the same quarter ending September 2024.

Chart 1 shows a trend line for the percentage of patients who started treatment in psychological therapy within 18 weeks of referral in Scotland. The time period is in quarters and covers from quarter ending September 2021 to quarter ending September 2025

Close

Percentage of patients of all ages who started treatment in PT within 18 weeks of referral, by quarter for September 2021 to September 2025, NHS Scotland

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.

Please note from November 2023, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (GG&C) altered PT reporting methods to be in accordance with the updated Psychological therapies and interventions waiting times standard definitions released September 2023. NHS GG&C are unable to revise historic data for previous overcounting. More detail about this change can found in the data quality document for more information.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 3 March 2026.