IAPT under the microscope

Abstract

England’s flagship ‘Improving Access to Psychological Therapies’ (IAPT) service has cost around £1 billion yet Scott’s (2018a) study suggests that only 9.2% of IAPT patients recover. This leaves an enormous gap of 40.8% between the observed recovery rate and IAPT’s claimed recovery rate of 50.0%. The spotlight is on patients with ‘medically unexplained symptoms’ (MUS) and ‘long-term conditions’ (LTCs) such as ‘diabetes, COPD and ME/CFS, yet there is no way of knowing whether IAPT is capable of yielding the promised rewards or English patients are being sold an expensive pup. An urgent independent expert review of IAPT recovery rates is necessary to answer this question.