Children and young people have waited up to 623 days to access mental health services in the Highlands after being referred for treatment, according to new figures.
Statistics acquired by the Scottish Liberal Democrats show that the Highlands had the second longest wait for children to start treatment in Scotland.
The longest wait for children who started treatment in 2016-17 was 666 days in Lothian, followed by 623 days in Highland and 385 days in Grampian.
For those currently waiting to start treatment, the longest wait was 611 days in Fife and 448 days in Ayrshire and Arran.
Party leader Willie Rennie said the figures, obtained through freedom of information legislation, were “appalling”.
He said: “Waiting more than 600 days for help must feel like a lifetime. SNP ministers should hang their heads in shame.
“These new statistics show why SNP government was so wrong to reject the opportunity to invest to transform mental health services in its budget.
“It shows the damage caused by its letting the mental health strategy expire for 15 months. Its replacement has finally been published but charities and pressure groups have rightly declared it lacks ambition, detail and investment.”
Mr Rennie said his party would end the “underfunding” of mental health, set up new units for children and ensure more mental health professionals were available at more locations.
In response, a Scottish Government spokesman said the most recent official statistics showed the number of children and young people seen by mental health services within the target time had increased for the second quarter in a row.
He added: “Our recently published Mental Health Strategy contains a range of actions that focus on prevention and early intervention to meet the mental health needs of children and young people, to help prevent the development of mental
health problems, and to step in promptly where they develop.
“We’ve set out 40 initial actions to better join up our services, to refocus them and to deliver them when they are needed.
Over the next five years we will increase the mental health workforce by 800 in key settings like GP surgeries, A&E, prisons, and police custody suites, with funding increasing to £35million to support this training and recruitment.
“We will also soon commission reviews into school counselling and rejected child and adolescent mental health service referrals, as a foundation for making further improvements.”