Psychological therapies programme to be extended

The Department of Health has announced that 24 new sites are to join the children and young people’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (IAPT), in what is the third expansion of the four-year-funded project in as many years.

Set up in 2011, IAPT has expanded from the original four pilot sites to covering 54 per cent of the 0 to 19 age group in England. It offers young people six sessions of evidence-based therapies, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, for a variety of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and conduct disorders.

Young people are key to the programme, being involved in service design and giving feedback on how effective treatments are.

IAPT interventions are delivered through a regional network of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). These partnerships are linked to one of five collaboratives, formed of education providers and academic institutes, that train CAMHS workers to deliver the therapy and monitor outcomes.

The 24 new sites are spread across the five collaboratives – eight in London and the South East; five in the North East, Yorkshire and Humber; three in the South West; four in Reading and Oxford; and four in the North West – and will receive a budget to develop a local IAPT offer.

Alongside the existing range of therapies, the programme will start training CAMHS staff to offer inter-personal therapy for depression in adolescents and evidence-based systemic work with families from next year.

Professor Sue Bailey, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, said: "The RCPsych very much welcomes the growth of the IAPT programme for children and young people, and we look forward to a time in the near future when such a programme is available to every child in England as a part of an integrated pathway of care."