Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT)

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.

There are three main meetings Chaired by the IAPT Workforce Team, they are:

• IAPT Workforce Reference Group
• IAPT Education and Training Project Group
• IAPT Pathfinder Site Workforce Leads Network

For more information on IAPT Workforce - please click here for a detailed presentation - A West Midlands Approach

For more information on the CSIP Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme please click here

5 New Ways of Working for Psychological Therapies Terms of Reference:

• Workstream 1: Bringing together the evidence base for psychological therapies: which treatments, what skills and whose competencies are needed for the future IAPT national training and service delivery plan?
• Workstream 2 Mapping the Psychological Therapies Workforce Joint Convenors - Sally Aldridge Ruth Duffy
• Work stream 3: Developing a career framework for psychological therapists Joint convenors: Jeremy Clarke & Roslyn Hope
• Workstream 4: To address how psychological therapists can work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams providing high quality, cost effective services Joint convenors: Stephen Humphries and Malcolm Allen
• Workstream 5: New ways of working for psychological therapists