Psychological Therapies in Primary Care HIT review of 2014-15

Dr Nicola Wiles and Dr David Kessler, Directors of the Psychological Therapies in Primary Care Health Integration Team (InPsyTe HIT), give an update on the HIT’s work in 2014-15.

Our HIT aims to improve the psychological care for patients
with depression, anxiety and other common mental disorders. These are a major
cause of disability, and patients express a preference for psychological therapy
rather than medication. We also want to innovate, and one of our major themes
is the development of online technology to improve access to psychological
treatments.

We are a new HIT and are just getting started. We have
developed a strong leadership team which brings together commissioners, the council,
patients, clinicians and academics. We had our inaugural meeting of the wider
HIT group in March where we heard presentations on patient involvement,
equality and diversity, the delivery of therapy, and the re-commissioning of
primary care mental health services that is under way.

From this meeting we’ve identified three themes to focus on:
improving access to service, technological innovation, testing and engagement
with therapy, and PPI.

Our short and medium term goals are to work to inform
changes in service design and provision now and to add an evaluative component
to the design of the new service.

In the longer term, our goals are more ambitious. We want to
bring the latest evidence into practice, to improve engagement with
psychological therapies. We will also strive to expand access to psychological
therapies through digital innovation, including a new model of the delivery of cognitive
behavioural therapy integrating the work of the therapist with online materials.