falsifying data Archives

4 Out of 10 IAPT Workers Pressured to Alter Results

that is the finding of a survey of 550 current and past IAPT staff , https://survivingwork.org/5241-2/. The credibility of IAPT’s claims are in doubt, a referendum of its’ staff is needed.

NHS England is guilty of breathtaking naivety and laziness when it asserted on Radio 5 Live on Wednesday, November 13th, that 7 out of 10 IAPT clients move to recovery and 5 out of 10 recover. They did so without appeal to any independent audit. My own findings published in the Journal of Health Psychology last year suggested that actually the tip of the iceberg recover https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1359105318755264.

Clinical Commisioning Groups (CCG’s) should no longer see NHS England as a compelling source of persuasion in this matter, rather they need to listen to patients and the workers at the coalface. CCG’s should challenge IAPT to have a referendum of its staff at a local and national level, asking:

‘Do you want IAPT to move towards face to face assessment and treatment, as the norm?’

with simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response options. The collective experience of IAPT workers has to be taken seriously. Judging by the stress levels reported by staff in the survey, IAPT cannot seriously maintain that it is discharging its’ duty of care to its’ staff.

Dr Mike Scott

IAPT Behind Closed Doors – Falsifying Quality Control Data

My experience is that at least one person was found to have massaged the figures to reflect a greater recovery rate and consequent discharge. This was only discovered following a particularly high level of re-referrals for ex-patients and subsequent complaints.

With regard to the PHQ 9 and GAD 7 scoring system, I feel that this could be open to abuse. This may be because workers are under great pressure to perform and elicit results. I believe this to have taken place as a consequence of almost overwhelming pressure to discharge referrals. With more discharges came more referrals and there was never any acknowledgement of best practice or learning lessons appropriately. I understood also that PHQ 9 and GAD 7 only had pertinence for those suffering from mild to moderate mental health conditions. I had to use other tests for those persons who had suffered past trauma and more severe mental illness which I myself as a practitioner “filtered out” as a consequence of them being incorrectly referred to step 2 services.

Anonymity protected – Dr Mike Scott