I recently came across a former IAPT client that the Organisation’s own documentation described as considering two different means of suicide. He had been bullied at school and engaged in a lot of self-harm. This depressed young man was given computer assisted CBT by IAPT and dropped out after 4 sessions. He told me that it did not teach him anything he did not already know. IAPT’s decision making is based on exigencies rather than clinical need.
Oftentimes a client with thoughts that they would be ‘better off dead’ are passed back to their GP. The GP is then obliged to contact the patient to discover that the ‘suicidal thoughts’ are most often passive and without any active intent or planning. In such instances IAPT had not taken the time to discover whether there was any active planning of suicide. The reaction of the Organisation is that ‘we do not want egg on our face’, so bounce it back to the GP. Unfortunately GP’s don’t complain to their Clinical Commissioning Groups about IAPT, content that they get a break from these ‘non-medical’ cases whilst they are being seen by IAPT, albeit that it is a revolving door.
Dr Mike Scott
