£170 million boost to mental health therapies

Health secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement of a £170 million expansion of psychological therapies to provide better support for people with mental health problems. has been welcomed by mental health agencies

Millions of people suffer from depression and anxiety. These are the most common of the mental health problems, which account for 40% of the numbers on incapacity benefit. Treating them is estimated to take up about a third of GPs' time.

Psychological therapies have proved to be as effective as drugs in tackling these common mental health problems and are often more effective in the longer term. NICE guidelines on treatment for depression and anxiety recommend therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Building on two demonstration projects, the government will next year roll out psychological therapies to twenty new areas before increasing services to cover the whole country over the next few years.

The two national IAPT demonstration sites at Newham and Doncaster have achieved impressive recovery rates that replicate clinical trials and are in line with NICE guidelines.

Lord Richard Layard, co-author of the London School of Economics Depression Report said: “This is great news and just what we've all been waiting for. Mental health is the biggest social problem in our country. This new service will bring relief from misery to millions of people.

“I'm delighted the government has committed to implement the NICE guidelines on treating depression and, importantly, is doing so in the first big announcement of the new spending review.”

Lord Layard puts the total economic loss, in sick leave, lost jobs and reduced output, due to depression and chronic anxiety at £12 billion a year - 1% of our national income. £7 billion of this hits the taxpayer in incapacity benefits paid out and income tax not received.

David Veale, president of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies, said the announcement would increase access to CBT for hundreds of thousands of people and mean more than 3,000 new therapists would be needed.

Dr Veale said: “This is fantastic news for all those people who have been waiting for access to CBT. It will mean a massive expansion of CBT right across the country with thousands more therapists trained and employed.

“This is probably the single biggest step forward in the provision of CBT that we have ever seen in Britain. It also means that mental health is now taking centre stage and being recognised by the government as a major issue for our times.”

Prof. Sue Bailey, registrar of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “We welcome this opportunity to work with the Department of Health and those in primary care to play our full part in taking forward these initiatives to better meet the needs of those with depression and anxiety.

“This must be matched by further funding to provide an even balance of services for those with severe and sustained mental disorders that are beyond the scope of this initiative,” Prof Bailey continued.

“The college recognises that GPs play a key role in supporting people with mental health problems, and welcomes the Department of Health’s announcement that all GP surgeries would have access to the treatments as the programme is ‘rolled out’ across the country.

“We are already working collaboratively with GPs towards improving the recognition, assessment and early treatment of mental health problems, and are actively involved in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative’.

“We look forward to a continuing commitment from the government to meeting the needs of the ‘1 in 4’ of us who will experience mental disorders, and recognition that there is no health without mental health.”

Mental health problems are the largest single cause of disability and illness in England accounting for

40% of all disability (physical and mental)

nearly 40% of people on incapacity benefit (and a secondary factor for 10% more of them)

a third of all GPs' time

About 1 in 6 UK adults has a common mental health condition (i.e. depression or anxiety disorders) and an estimated 91m working days a year are lost to mental illness. The government has set an aspiration to raise the number of working age adults in employment from 75-80% of the working age population, and has a target to reduce the number of people on incapacity benefit.

Huge numbers of people suffering from these conditions are not getting the treatment they need to bring them out of the misery these conditions involve. Those in treatment are only

1 in 4 of those diagnosed

less than half of those in a 'depressive episode'

taking drugs prescribed by their GP, although they would prefer the more-recently developed 'therapy'