One in three GP consultations are now estimated to involve mental health in some way. In the face of this demand, the past few years have seen the introduction of a new model called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). This model has been and continues to be expanded under the
Five Year Forward View for Mental Health and the ten year plan. IAPT has been sold as a game changer and a panacea
to revolutionise mental healthcare in the community. Sadly, the ground realities appear very different.
We need mental health services that are personalised and have flexibility around access, with the services genuinely designed around the patient. However, the way IAPT has been adopted is exactly the opposite.
Overwhelmed and
understaffed services with a high attrition rate of staff are hardly the breeding ground for revolutionary care. A model that screens the “service user” with personal questions about their intimate feelings on the phone, and which has been found to keep people
waiting for
months in some areas, unsurprisingly, results in huge dropout rates. The concept of patient choice under this model remains a
distant dream.