skip to main content

NHSScotland CAMHS Workforce 31 March 2024

Quarter ending 31 March 2024
Official Statistics
Published: 04 June 2024

About this release

This release by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) provides a quarterly update, as at 31 March 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 31 March 2024:

  • There were 1,526.5 WTE (1745 Headcount) staff in post within NHSScotland CAMHS, an increase of 133.5% since 2006, 53.6% since 31 March 2016, 15.6% since last year and 1.6% since last quarterly census. This is an increase of 101.2% within the Speech and Language Therapy professional group, 23% within the Nursing professional group and 4.9% within the Psychology professional group and decrease of 7.9% within the Medical professional group since last year. Of the total staff in post, 48.7 WTE (3.2%) were on maternity/paternity leave and 23.3 WTE (1.5%) were on long term sick leave.
  • There were 70.3% CAMHS staff working in whole-time posts and 29.7% working in part-time posts, an increase of 15% in whole-time posts and 17% in part-time posts since last year’s census. Within the Medical professional group, approximately half (56.4%) of the workforce worked part-time, compared to 45.9% in the Psychology professional group and 15.2% in the Nursing professional group.
  • There were 79.1 WTE vacancies advertised which is a decrease of 50.3% vacancies since March 2023 census. 35.5% of vacancies were in the Psychology professional group,33.4% of vacancies were in the Nursing professional group and 8.2% were in the Occupational Therapy professional group.
  • Of the total vacancies advertised, 65.1% were advertised for less than 3 months, 17.8% were advertised for 3-6 months and 17.1% were advertised for more than 6 months. A further 21 WTE were approved for recruitment but not yet advertised and 11.5 WTE were sent for approval.
  • Of the total 79.1 WTE vacancies advertised, 25.3% (20 WTE) were advertised as new posts, 70.3% (55.6 WTE) were advertised as replacement posts,0.6 % (0.5 WTE) were advertised as Maternity/Paternity cover, 1.3% (1WTE) were advertised as secondment posts and 2.5% (2WTE) were advertised as Other category. The total vacancy rate of 4.9% has decreased compared to 6.1% for the last quarterly census and 10.8% for last year’s census.

CAMHS Workforce census data - 31 March 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 September 2024.