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IAPT Defrauding A Local Clinical Commissioning Group?

on November 20th I wrote to the Chief Officer, (see link below), of  the Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group, about Talk Liverpool’s claim that it has had an 87% recovery rate in the last 12 months [see Talk Liverpool’s Performance Data]. A Freedom of Information Response that I received on November 19th from the Liverpool CCG revealed that this financial year it expected to increase its’ funding by £2.5 million to £10.6 million. IAPT’s local claims are eye-brow raising as nationally IAPT claim one in two recover [see IAPT Manual (2018)]  – Talk Liverpool have clearly discovered some therapeutic secret that is being kept very secret!   Liverpool CCG has spent £60.6 million on IAPT since 2013-2014 all without any independent assessment. The CCG has simply taken Talk Liverpool’s word and focussed entirely on operational matters such as numbers seen and waiting times. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ch5uka6yq8pukd/CCG%20letter.docx?dl=0

But the issue is not confined to Liverpool, Mental Health Commissioners nationally need to be critical of IAPT. Unfortunately the focus of Mental Health   Commissioners Network Forum is simply on building liason between Commissioners and Providers. The IAPT National Networking Forum  meeting on January 21st  is to be addressed by the Forum’s Deputy Chair. The day is titled ‘Building and developing your service to meet IAPT LTC expansion’ the advertising blurb  for the meeting reads ‘With access rates going up, is your service trying to do things you don’t have the capacity to do? IAPT staff are invited to bring along a Commissioner free of charge. There is a pressing need for Mental Health Commissioners Network Forum to address the question of the reliability of the evidence that IAPT is value f or money.

 

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Would be interesting to randomise to IAPT versus alternative active treatment. And to use independent outcomes raters.

Prof Rob Howard has just tweeted, I replied that I absolutely agree.  I added that the cost of local IAPT (Liverpool CCG) has been £60.6 million since 2013-2014, with a 25% increase in funding in the past year all without any independent evaluation. I am blogging on defrauding a local commissioning group in the next few days.

Dr Mike Scott