Psychological therapies
In this section, you can find out information on the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, a joint Department of Health and Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) pilot project, which was launched by the Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt on 12 May 06.
About the programme
The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme seeks to deliver on the Government’s 2005 General Election manifesto commitment to provide improved access to psychological therapies for people who require the help of mental health services. It also responds to service user’s requests for more personalised services based around their individuals needs.
It will test the effectiveness of providing increases in evidence based psychological therapy services to people with ’common’ mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, in providing improvements in health, well-being and in maintaining people or returning people to employment and community participation.
The IAPT programme is comprised of two national demonstration sites, in Newham and Doncaster, as well as a national network of local Psychological Therapy programmes in each of the eight Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) Regional Development Centres (RDC).
The IAPT programme’s main aims are to:
- Improve individual’s well-being, satisfaction and choice
- Improve access and support to maintain people in work and to help them to return to work
- Develop clinical protocols to ensure clinically effective treatments are available to people in primary and community locations
- Develop service models for delivering integrated, stepped-care for people requiring access to psychological therapies across the spectrum of services
- Reduce waiting lists for accessing psychological therapies
- Develop a workforce plan for rolling-out the increases in capacity tested by the pilot sites that is sustainable, realistic and affordable.
It will also assess the wider economic impact to society for providing increased access to psychological therapy services and assemble a case for additional investment in the expansion of psychological therapies services through the roll-out of the demonstration site models.
