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Improving access to talking treatments
We need to talk
For many years, Mind has argued that people should be able to access the support and treatments which best suit them. In October 2006, Mind, Rethink, the Mental Health Foundation, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and YoungMinds published a report called We need to talk to raise awareness of the need for greater access to psychological therapies on the NHS.
Psychological therapies are appropriate treatments for people of all ages, ethnic groups and for a range of physical and mental health conditions. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended that psychological therapies should be available on the NHS. [1]
But access is extremely limited. Mind has heard accounts of waiting lists running to over two years in some parts of the country.
This is a major inequality in health care. A failure to offer evidence-based treatments for physical health problems like cancer would rightly lead to a national outcry. We believe the non-availability of psychological therapies, and the failure to implement mandatory NICE guidelines on mental health, is equally unacceptable.
This is not an optional extra to existing health and social care provision – it is as necessary as any proven technology for any illness in any part of the NHS.
We need to talk recommends that:
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The NHS should implement NICE guidance as a matter of urgency.
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The Government's 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review should provide for improved access to talking therapies (see below for update).
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The NHS should introduce waiting time measures for access to mental health treatments.
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The Department of Health should make a realistic assessment of the workforce and training implications of delivering psychological therapies.
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The Department of Health and regulatory bodies should ensure substantive measures for public protection from malpractice.
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The Department of Health should investigate the current bias in research priorities and address it by supporting more research into psychological therapies.
Comprehensive Spending Review, 10 October 2007
In the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, the Government announced that it was going to invest an extra £170 million a year in the expansion of talking therapies on the NHS by 2010/11, meaning that all GPs will be able to offer all their patients psychological therapies within six years. The announcement is a massive boost for people across the country and the campaign. It should mean that the long waiting times, of as much as 18 months, will be a thing of the past within six years. It should help more people keep their jobs, stay in education and maintain family life.
Click on the links below to read Mind's press releases on this subject:
While we are waiting
While we are waiting is a report based on 75 people's experiences of waiting for and receiving treatment on the NHS. It is the 2nd report from the We need to talk coalition - a coalition of 5 mental health organisations (Mind, Rethink, Young Minds, Sainsbury Centre and the Mental Health Foundation) with the aim of improving access to psychological therapies on the NHS.
The report says that psychological therapy can not only improve an individual’s mental health but also a person’s ability to manage family life, relationships, a job or an ongoing physical illness. Being stuck on waiting lists for months or years, can have the reverse effect, causing worsening mental health problems, relationship break downs and force some people to take time off from work - or give up a job completely.
Skills for Health would like to hear your views (Summmer-Autumn 2008)
Skills for Health, an external organisation, are inviting service users to participate in the Development of National Occupational Standards for Psychological Therapies.
Contact Mind about our work on improving access to talking treatments
Notes
[1] NICE guidlines for depression (PDF file); NICE guidelines for anxiety (PDF file)
Last updated August 2008
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