Dr David Marks, Editor of the Journal of Health Psychology writes in the latest issue, https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105318781872, ‘England’s flagship ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ (IAPT) service has cost around £1 billion
yet Scott’s (2018a) study suggests that only 9.2% of IAPT patients recover. This leaves an enormous gap of 40.8% between the observed recovery rate and IAPT’s claimed recovery rate of 50.0%. The spotlight is on patients with ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (MUS) and ‘long-term conditions’ (LTCs) such as ‘diabetes, COPD and ME/CFS, yet there is no way of knowing whether IAPT is capable of yielding the promised rewards or English patients are being sold an expensive pup. An urgent independent expert review of IAPT recovery rates is necessary to answer this question’.
Contents
Special Section: IAPT Under the Microscope
IAPT under the microscope 1131
David F Marks
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) – The Need for Radical Reform 1136
Michael J Scott
The diagnosis is correct, but National Institute of Health and Care Excellence 1148
guidelines are part of the problem not the solution
Sami Timimi
Attempting to reconcile large differences in Improving Access to Psychological 1153
Therapies recovery rates
Scott H Waltman
Medical approaches to suffering are limited, so why critique Improving Access 1159
to Psychological Therapies from the same ideology
James Binnie
Transforming Improving Access to Psychological Therapies 1163
Michael J Scott
Dr Mike Scott