{"id":3130,"date":"2018-05-18T18:01:26","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T17:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ocduk.net\/?page_id=3130"},"modified":"2018-07-04T18:18:01","modified_gmt":"2018-07-04T17:18:01","slug":"iapt","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ocduk.org\/overcoming-ocd\/accessing-ocd-treatment\/accessing-ocd-treatment-through-the-nhs\/iapt\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Access to Psychological Therapies – IAPT"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The\u00a0Improving Access to Psychological Therapies<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0IAPT<\/mark>\u00a0for short, (pronounced eye-apt), is a programme which began in 2008 with the direct objective to, as the name suggests, improve access for people with anxiety and depression, including OCD, to evidenced based psychological therapies, such as\u00a0Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since then the IAPT programme\u00a0has transformed treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England, with over 900,000 people accessing IAPT services each year, in the last annual IAPT report (covering the years 2016-2017), 15,048 people entered treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as their primary problem.\u00a0 IAPT set itself the ambitious target of achieving a minimum of 50% recovery for all individuals completing treatment.\u00a0 In that 2016\/2017 report, it\u2019s claimed that 49.7% of those completing a course of treatment had moved to some level of recovery.<\/p>\n

It is widely accepted that the IAPT programme is a success based off its original objectives and the NHS has committed to further expanding IAPT services, so 1.5 million people per year will be seen by 2020\/21. This represents around a quarter of the community prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders which is indeed ambitious.<\/p>\n

So what level of stepped care does IAPT offer?<\/strong>
\nThe initial step will offer help in recognition and diagnosis of a person\u2019s OCD, and provide guided self-help materials. Whilst for most people with OCD, we believe this will not be sufficient, certainly earlier diagnosis and education and knowledge of the illness is beneficial.<\/p>\n

IAPT will have two types of psychological therapy practitioners . For steps 1 and 2, these will be low intensity therapy workers trained in cognitive behavioural approaches for people with mild to moderate anxiety and depression.\u00a0\u00a0Moving up the stepped approach to level 3, there will be IAPT high intensity therapists trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).<\/p>\n

To try and explain the IAPT stepped care approach to treatment this illustration offers a visual guide.<\/p>\n

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Click to enlarge the illustration<\/p><\/div>\n

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However, despite the success of IAPT, OCD-UK continue to hear of problems and poor IAPT experiences for many service-users. \u00a0\u00a0We want to see these problems addressed and not dismissed, they include:
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