Article: Lancet, "Improving access to psychological therapies in England", 2017, Thornicroft

My summary, "CBT, it's great and cures everything, but we still need more money"

Full text: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32158-X/fulltext

 

The accompanying piece is very pleased with itself over IAPT's collection of subjective self-report outcomes to assess efficacy.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32133-5/fulltext

Their criteria for reliable recovery doesn't sound that reliable:

So someone could move just over the cut-off at one point in time and then be classed as 'reliably recovered'? Awesome.

 

''The original prospectus for IAPT relied heavily on delivering a strong return on investment from reductions in “presenteeism and absenteeism”, namely greater workplace productivity as a result of the treatment of employed people with anxiety or depression. However, little evidence has emerged that such productivity gains have been realised.''

This seems very significant to me. The whole project was sold to government as a cheap way of getting people back to work. He is saying this has not been successful. So does that mean the government will scrap it and put in something more useful. Of course not, because that would cost more.

And these cheaper treatments enable the government to claim they are treating more mental health cases than ever, while at the same time closing beds in psych units desperately needed for acute cases in crisis.

 

While they cut benefits and push people into poverty it has become useful for the government to pretend that they're a world leader at empowering people to move away from a culture of dependency on benefits, regardless of the truth of the matter.