A survey of the provision of psychological treatments to older adults in the NHS

Abstract

Aims and method. A questionnaire was sent to old age psychiatrists to ascertain their experience, views and clinical practice regarding psychological therapies in their services. Results. The provision of psychological treatments of all modalities to older people is widely varied in Britain. The main difficulty seems to be a lack of resources, but it would appear that inexperience with psychological therapies applied to older adults is also a factor. Most mental health teams (95%) provide anxiety management therapy, and cognitive-behavioural therapy is widely available (76% of teams), but areas such as training and staff supervision appear to be poorly provided. Clinical implications. Suggestions are made to increase provision and quality of service within existing resources; improving services to the standards of the National Service Framework would be a bigger challenge.