NHSScotland CAMHS Workforce 30 June 2024
Quarter ending 30 June 2024
Official Statistics
Published: 03 September 2024
About this release
This release by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) provides a quarterly update, as at 30 June 2024, on the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workforce staff in post, vacancies and staff in training.
Figures are presented as headcount (actual numbers of staff) and whole time equivalent (WTE), which adjusts the figures to take account of part time working.
Main Points
At 30 June 2024:
- There were 1,511.8 WTE (1740 Headcount) staff in post within NHSScotland CAMHS, an increase of 131.3% since 2006, 52.2% since 31 March 2016, 11.2% since last year and decrease of 1% since last quarterly census. This is an increase of 15.1% within the Nursing professional group and 4.3% in the Psychology professional group and decrease of 4.4% in the Medical professional group since last year. Of the total staff in post, 49.3 WTE (3.3%) were on maternity/paternity leave and 25.4 WTE (1.7%) were on long term sick leave.
- There were 69.2% CAMHS staff working in whole-time posts and 30.8% working in part-time posts, an increase of 7.8% in whole-time posts and 19.7% in part-time posts since last year’s census. Within the Medical professional group, approximately half (55.3%) of the workforce worked part-time, compared to 45.3% in the Psychology professional group and 16.9% in the Nursing professional group.
- There were 73.6 WTE vacancies advertised which is a decrease of 49.4% vacancies since June 2023 census. 40.9% of vacancies were in the Psychology professional group,26.6% of vacancies were in the Nursing professional group and 17.7% were in the Other professional group.
- Of the total vacancies advertised, 56% were advertised for less than 3 months, 26.8% were advertised for 3-6 months and 17.3% were advertised for more than 6 months.
- There were 32 WTE approved for recruitment but not yet advertised and 5.3 WTE were sent for approval but not yet approved.
- Of the total 73.6 WTE vacancies advertised, 20.4% (15 WTE) were advertised as new posts, 77.2% (56.8 WTE) were advertised as replacement posts and 2.4 % (1.8 WTE) were advertised as Maternity/Paternity cover. The total vacancy rate of 4.6% has decreased compared to 4.9% for the last quarterly census and 9.7% for last year’s census.
CAMHS Workforce census data - 30 June 2024
Background
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) provide essential assessment, care and treatment of children and young people (and their parents/carers) who are experiencing serious mental health problems. They also have an important role in supporting the mental health capability of the wider network of children’s services. The delivery of good quality CAMHS services depends upon adequate numbers of staff being recruited and retained across NHSScotland.
Information on members of staff employed are sourced from each NHS Health board and verified by CAMHS lead clinicians using the National CAMHS Workforce Information Database held centrally at NSS. NHS Education for Scotland work closely with these clinicians to ensure a high level of accuracy. Continuous work is undertaken to improve the data quality and consistency of the information provided. Previously published information may change to reflect any improvements. Further information is available on Turas Data Intelligence.
Further Information
As of 1 October 2019, ownership and responsibility for collecting and reporting workforce data transferred from Information Services Division (ISD) to NES.
The data from this publication are available to download from our web page and available as dashboards. Publications prior to 3 December 2019 can be accessed via the ISD CAMHS page.
CAMHS Psychology Workforce information is also included in the main Psychology Workforce publication.
The next release of this publication will be in December 2024.