IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) is a car crash, funded by the taxpayer to the tune of £1bn, but without any insurance for the public. Staff are stressed out and there is a 10% recovery rate for clients. The National Audit Office (NAO) recently investigated IAPT but have chosen not to make its’ findings public. I pursued a Freedom of Information Request but the NAO’s response has shed no light on their decision making. These findings are contained in my just published paper ‘Transforming IAPT’ in the Journal of Health Psychology:
the abstract reads:
Abstract
The three commentaries on my paper ‘IAPT – The Need for Radical Reform’ are agreed that Improving Access to Psychological Therapies cannot be regarded as the ‘gold standard’ for the delivery of psychological therapy services. Furthermore, they agreed that Improving Access to Psychological Therapies should not continue to mark its ‘own homework’ and should be subjected to rigorous independent evaluation scrutiny. It is a matter for a public enquiry to ascertain why £1 billion has been spent on Improving Access to Psychological Therapies without any such an independent evaluation. What is interesting is that no commentary has been forthcoming from the UK Improving Access to Psychological Therapies service nor have they shared a platform to discuss these issues. It is regrettable that the UK Government’s National Audit Office has chosen, to date, not to publish its own investigation into the integrity of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies data. Openness would be an excellent starting point for the necessary transformation of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies.
Dr Mike Scott