Speech to the New Savoy Partnership 26 November 2009 It’s a pleasure to join you at a conference renowned for breaking new ground in mental health policy. Whether I manage to live up to this tradition, I’ll leave you to judge. Read the full speech here The context of NHS reform
‘Doctors should stop pushing drugs at depressed people’
Despite a large increase in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) doctors are still pushing drugs at patients, according to Dr Jennifer Wild, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry. In this week’s Scrubbing Up, she argues that GPs need to understand that psychological therapies like CBT work and should choose to offer them. Read the [...]
Divorcing couples to be offered counselling on the NHS
The government is to announce that divorcing couples will be offered counselling on the National Health Service for the first time in an effort to tackle growing rates of depression. Read the full article here
NHS will provide relationship counselling to depressed couples
Couples will be offered counselling on the NHS if their relationship problems are causing depression, the health secretary has announced Read the full article here
New Services Added to WfW Map
Wave 2 Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) sites went live last month in London and as they establish themselves they are sending us information about their services so we can update the services map. To date 15 PCTs have IAPT services, these are: Camden City and Hackney Ealing Greenwich Haringey Hammersmith and Fulham Islington [...]
Latest Edition of Talking Times
The latest edition of the quarterly London IAPT newsletter is now online. Click here to download and read: Talking Times, November 2009
How to increase BME access to psychological therapies
A programme to improve access to psychological care is reaching into BME communities, reports Stuart Shepherd Read the full article here
Response to The Observer article ‘Flagship mental health scheme faces cutbacks’
This statement sets out the corrections to The Observer article “Flagship mental health scheme faces cutbacks” (4 October 2009) There were significant inaccuracies in the Observer article and it is important that all stakeholders understand the true position of the programme. There is no evidence that funding for IAPT will be cut and the funding will [...]
Phil Hope urged to act on homelessness and mental health
Crisis and St Mungo’s have called on care services minister Phil Hope to remove barriers to mental health services for homeless people given the high levels of mental illness in the client group. Read the full article here
Instant messaging can help depression
An article about computerised CBT (cCBT). It also includes some useful general links about depression That pop-up message window may be an irritant to many of us, but new research shows it can be used as an aid to getting over depression. Researchers have found that online talking treatment using instant messaging can help [...]
