A New Priority for Mental Health

"The IAPT programme costs commissioners nothing. This is because people with depression and anxiety disorders cost the NHS a huge amount in terms of their physical healthcare. Thus people with long-term physical conditions cost the NHS around £6,000 per year in physical healthcare if they are mentally ill, but only £4,000 if they are not mentally ill. This difference of £2,000 compares with the cost per person treated in IAPT of around £650 – a one-off cost. "

A New Priority for Mental Health
R Layard
Centre for Economic Performance
London School of Economics and Political Science
May 2015

Read more here.

Psychological Medicine in Bart’s: improving access and awareness

"a large number of general hospital patients have a mental disorder, mental ill health impedes recovery from physical illness and mental disorders are often unrecognised in patients with physical illness. By improving the quality of our liaison service we hope that we can achieve better integration within the medical teams and thus tackle the aforementioned problems."

Psychological Medicine in Bart’s: improving access and awareness
A Pavlidou
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2015;4: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u206661.w2871

Read more here.

NHS Choices Mental Health apps Library

This week, NHS England have released a directory of NHS endorsed mobile apps to support mental health. The apps are hoped to improve access to psychological therapies.

For more information and to access the apps go here.

Achieving better access to mental health services by 2020

"The introduction of new standards, new payment and new commissioning regimes will drive a much richer set of data about the quality and performance of services for all ages and the outcomes achieved. Much more relevant data, open to patients, the public, providers and commissioners will help to drive improvement and expose and then eradicate unacceptably long waits for treatment."

Achieving better access to mental health services by 2020
NHS England, Department of Health
August 2014

Read more here.