The IAPT programme started over 17 years ago as an answer to increasing needs for mental health support of the UK population. IAPT stands for Improving Access To Psychological Therapies and the goal is to help people before they become chronically depressed or anxious. Seeing patients from the general population who might be struggling a little bit with temporary difficulties. Giving them support and techniques to deal with those problems will prevent their mental health from deteriorating further.
What does IAPT do?
I worked in IAPT over 14 years now and it is really simple: helping people understand their problems, break them down, get some goals and help them work towards them. Learning techniques, getting support with stress, anxiety, phobias, low mood, OCD, social anxiety, insomnia, PTSD.
Where Can I Find A Local Service
Every town, village, city, and county in the UK has a local IAPT service. You can Google for contact details of your local service. You can self-refer – just call/ or follow their website’s referral. Even if you are not sure how you can get better, or what you want help with. You can arrange an initial call, discuss your difficulties and you will be presented with options and potential solutions. You can then choose to engage in the treatment, seek help elsewhere or wait till the right time comes along with just brief information. At least you have done the hardest part – recognizing you have a problem and you want to change it.
Ohhh and did I mention this service is absolutely FREE? So you have nothing to loose (apart from a few worries and stresses). 🙂
IAPT Services Are Characterized By Three Things
- Evidence-based psychological therapies: with the therapy delivered by fully trained and accredited practitioners, matched to the mental health problem and its intensity and duration designed to optimize outcomes. From April 2018 all clinical commissioning groups are required to offer IAPT services 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 IAPT services.
- Routine outcome monitoring: so that the person having therapy and the clinician offering it both have up-to-date information on an individual’s progress. This supports the development of a positive and shared approach to the goals of therapy and as this data is anonymized and published this promotes transparency in service performance encouraging improvement.
- Regular and outcomes-focused supervision so practitioners are supported to continuously improve and deliver high-quality care.
The Priorities For Service Development
- Expanding services so that 1.9m adults access treatment each year by 2024.
- Focusing on people with long term conditions. Two-thirds of people with a common mental health problem also have a long term physical health problem, greatly increasing the cost of their care by an average of 45% more than those without a mental health problem. By integrating IAPT services with physical health services the NHS can provide better support to this group of people and achieve better outcomes.
- Supporting people to find or stay in work. Good work contributes to good mental health, and IAPT services can better contribute to improved employment outcomes.
- Improving quality and people’s experience of services. Improving the numbers of people who recover, reducing geographic variation between services, and reducing inequalities in access and outcomes for particular population groups are all important aspects of the development of IAPT services.
Additional Resources
The previous IAPT website is no longer updated – if you require any information or resources from this website, you can access an archived version on the National Archives website.
You can use NHS Website to find an IAPT Service near you. Just follow the link here.