The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, now known as Talking Therapies, began in 2008 and has transformed the treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England. IAPT is widely-recognised as the most ambitious programme of talking therapies in the world and in the past year alone more than one million people accessed Talking Therapies for help to overcome their depression and anxiety, and better manage their mental health.
Plans set out in the NHS Long Term Plan build on the ambitions of the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, and will see the number of people with anxiety disorders or depression who can access Talking Therapies increase by an additional 380,000 per year to reach 1.9 million by 2023/24. Details of local talking therapies are available on the NHS website. The NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan 2019/20 – 2023/24 provides a new framework to ensure delivery, at the local level, on the commitment to pursue the most ambitious transformation of mental health care in England.
Talking Therapies is an evidenced-based psychological therapies service for common mental health problems like stress, anxiety and depression with the therapy delivered by fully trained and accredited practitioners, matched to the mental health problem and its intensity and duration designed to optimise outcomes. From April 2018 all clinical commissioning groups are required to offer Talking Therapies integrated with physical healthcare pathways. The IAPT Pathway for People with Long-term Physical Health Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms guidance is intended to help with implementation and sets out the ideal pathway for Talking Therapies.
In the South East Mental Health Region team as part of the larger Community Mental Health Transformation, we will support the Integrated Care Systems and their local providers to continue expanding and innovating their service provision, to improve access and to integrate with Physical health services to offer Long Term Health Conditions services.
In 2022/23 we will be focusing on:
- Increasing access both in the context of Covid-19 restoration and general awareness across the South East for Clinicians and the public through a target communications campaign for three under-represented groups (older people 65+, young people aged 18 – 25 and ethnic minority communities).
- Supporting systems to:
- Inform and educate primary care, community services and secondary care on the Talking Therapies model to better integrate into the system and increase appropriate referrals.
- Bring together the pathways of Talking Therapies and wider community and Primary Care MH transformation.
- Improve access for all under-represented groups.
- Supporting an Improvement Collaboration – sharing good practice through discussion and presentations (webinars, forums)
- Investigating in partnership, the broader challenges around workforce recruitment and retention.
- Supporting systems to use outcome measures and other metrics via data quality.
- Supporting systems who may be further behind with their transformation to mobilise and increase pace and quality.
Useful links:
- IAPT Manual – NHS England
- Older Adults Positive Practice Guide – BABCP
- BAME Positive Practice Guide – BABCP
- IAPT – LTC Full Implementation Guide – Royal College of Psychiatrists
- IAPT platform on NHS Futures
