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DAPB1520: Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Data Set

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Data Set collects information about adults in contact with psychological therapy services.

About this information standard

This information standard provides national definitions for the collection of IAPT data, allowing providers to extract data from their local systems in a consistent manner which enables national and local reporting to be undertaken.

This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. An Information Standards Notice (see below) provides an overview of scope and implementation timescales, and the other listed documents provide further detail for those who have to implement the information standard.

New name for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies

Following an extensive engagement process, NHS England national mental health team has recently announced a new name for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services: NHS Talking Therapies, accompanied by the following tagline: for anxiety and depression.

For further information about the name change, visit the NHS England pages NHS England What’s in a name? NHS Talking Therapies, for anxiety and depression – the new name for IAPT services.

The data set will continue to be referred to as ‘IAPT’ until the next uplift of the data set has received DAPB approval.



Change control

Update 6 October 2021

At the time of publication of version 2.1 (20 July 2021), users were expected to fully conform with this standard by 25 March 2022. Due to continuing investment in COVID-19 activity, NHS Digital has since extended the implementation and conformance dates of this standard by three months. Full conformance is now expected with the submission of the April 2022 reporting activity by 29 June 2022.

The Requirements Specification, Change Specification, and Implementation Guidance have been annotated to reflect this and the updated copies are available in the version 2.1 release table above.


Last edited: 27 July 2023 12:37 pm