Psychological Therapies, Annual Report on the use of IAPT services - England, 2013-14

In 2013-14:

• Nearly one million (947,640) individuals were referred to IAPT services (in total they received 1,118,990 referrals) and 63 per cent of these (596,518) were female. The highest rates of access were for people between the ages of 25 and 29, at 3,384 per 100,000 of the population (compared with 1,759 for all ages)

• Although provisional diagnosis was not recorded in all cases, diagnoses of 'depressive disorder' (137,124 referrals) accounted for over a quarter of new referrals with a provisional diagnosis recorded (27 per cent)

•  61 per cent of the referrals that entered treatment (1)  in the year (709,117 including some referrals made during the previous year) had a first treatment appointment within 28 days of referral, and 89 per cent (632,486) within 90 days. By Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) the proportion varied from 3 per cent to 96per cent

• 3,234,981 appointments were attended and 93 per cent of these (2,997,357) involved some form of therapy (referred to as a 'treatment appointment'). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) was the most common therapy type (recorded for 38 per cent of treatment appointments)

• 919,994 referrals ended during the year, of which 40 per cent (364,343) had 'finished a course of treatment' (having attended at least two treatment appointments). However, 37 per cent (335,944) ended without being seen by the service(2)  (and the remaining 24 per cent (219,707) had either one attended treatment and one attended assessment appointment, or just an attended assessment appointment)

• The mean average number of treatment sessions within a finished course of treatment was six sessions, although 20 per cent of referrals that ended with a finished course of treatment had the minimum of two. This varied by provisional diagnosis; referrals for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) had the highest average at nine sessions

• Of the 364,343 referrals that ended having finished a course of treatment, 60 per cent showed reliable improvement(3)  (217,591). 19,976 (13 per cent) of the 159,247 referrals prescribed and taking medication at the start of treatment were no longer taking it after their course of treatment.

Footnotes

1 Referrals enter treatment at the point of their first treatment appointment. 

2 Referrals that were never seen by the service did not have any attended appointments (assessment or treatment) during the referral.

3 Referrals are classed as having reliable improvement if the patient shows a reliable decrease in anxiety or depression score between the first and last measurement, and the other clinical state (depression or anxiety) either also reliably decreases or shows no reliable change.