A Lanarkshire youngster seeking mental health treatment had to wait nearly two years before being seen.
New figures have revealed just how long some patients were left to wait for help after being referred to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in 2020.
The stats also showed that one Lanarkshire patient has currently been waiting 830 days without being seen.
The figures were described as a “torturous wait” by the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who requested the figures from every health board across Scotland.
In Lanarkshire a further nine patients faced a 21 month wait before finally beginning their treatment, while another four were only seen 20 months after being referred.
In total there were 73 youngsters who had wait a minimum of 12 months before beginning their treatment.
The figures are similar for those who are currently waiting to begin treatment. Four have been waiting for 24 months while 299 young people in total are still waiting to be seen after at least a year.
For NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, which serves parts of Rutherglen, the longest wait was 17 months.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the party’s health spokesman, hit out at the case, calling it "a shocking catalogue of failures".
He told Lanarkshire Live : "Waits of two years or more for mental health care are torturous. Problems that start small if left untreated become crises.
"It breaks my heart to know that children are being failed for so long by Scotland’s current mental health care system.
"If your child breaks their arm, you would expect them to be seen the same day but if they come forward with a mental health condition their wait can last for years.
"The SNP is guilty of over a decade of NHS mismanagement and these statistics prove it.
"They have been failing generations of young adults in need of swift mental health help.”
The party have argued in favour of further funding and more local and accessible services.
Mental health minister Kevin Stewart admitted that the CAMHS waiting times were “not acceptable”.
He told us: “Long waits for CAMHS are not acceptable.
"It is encouraging to see progress towards meeting the waiting times target, with eight out of ten children and young people seen within 18 weeks of a referral.
"But we are determined to further improve things, particularly in those areas where there have been increases in the number of children and young people waiting for over a year for treatment."
He added that further investment would be provided.
*Don't miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
And did you know Lanarkshire Live is on Facebook? Head over and give our page a share and a like.
