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