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Publication, Part of

Psychological Therapies: reports on the use of IAPT services, England, September 2021 Final including reports on the IAPT pilots and Quarter 2 data 2021-22

Official statistics, Experimental statistics

Publication Date:
9 Dec 2021
Geographic Coverage:
England
Geographical Granularity:
Care Trusts, Clinical Commissioning Groups, Independent Sector Health Care Providers, Mental Health Trusts, NHS Trusts, Integrated Care Boards
Date Range:
01 Sep 2021 to 30 Sep 2021

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Quarterly files have been updated due to the following CCGs being excluded from the CCG-Provider breakdowns: A3A8R, B2M3M, D2P2L, D4U1Y, D9Y0V, M1J4Y, M2L0M, W2U3Z, X2C4Y. There are no errors with previous published data.

The Quarterly Interactive Dashboard was published on 18 February 2022, it had previously been delayed due to a technical issue.

Please note the timeseries data in this publication was updated on 10 March 2022 to include revised data, for some providers, for the period September 2020 to May 2021. The core data for September 2021 is unaffected. This is following a one-off resubmission exercise that took place in August 2021 and covered the data period September 2020 to May 2021 inclusive.

3 February 2022 13:06 PM

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Outcomes

Outcomes in IAPT are measured in terms of three measures:

recovery,
reliable improvement,
and reliable recovery.

Recovery

Recovery in IAPT is measured in terms of ‘caseness’ – a term which means a referral has severe enough symptoms of anxiety or depression to be regarded as a clinical case. A referral has moved to recovery if they were defined as a clinical case at the start of their treatment (‘at caseness’) and not as a clinical case at the end of their treatment, measured by scores from questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.

The Government target is that 50% of eligible referrals to IAPT services should move to recovery.⁶

49.9% of eligible referrals moved to recovery

Calculating Recovery rates

In September 2021, the calculation to calculate the recovery rate is performed as below:

Count_Recovery / (Count_FinishedCourseTreatment - NotAtCaseness) * 100

26,759 / (56,972 - 3,336) * 100 = 49.9%

Sub-national recovery rates are published in the Monthly Activity Data File as column ‘Percentage_Recovery’.

NOTE: due to improvements to the denominator calculation, some December 2020 provider-level figures that were suppressed in the previous publication are now available in this publication's data file. 

Reliable improvement

A referral has shown reliable improvement if there is a significant improvement in their condition following a course of treatment, measured by the difference between their first and last scores on questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.

66.6% of referrals finishing a course of treatment showed reliable improvement

Calculating improvement rates

In September 2021, the calculation is performed as below:

Count_Improvement / Count_FinishedCourseTreatment *100

37,956 / 56,972 * 100 = 66.6%

Sub-national reliable improvement rates are published in the Monthly Activity Data File as column ‘Percentage_Improvement’.

Reliable recovery

A referral has reliably recovered if they meet the criteria for both the recovery and reliable improvement measures. That is, they have moved from being a clinical case at the start of treatment to not being a clinical case at the end of treatment, and there has also been a significant improvement in their condition.

47.1% of referrals reliably recovered

Calculating reliable recovery rates

In September 2021, this calculation is performed as follows:

Count_ReliableRecovery / (Count_FinishedCourseTreatment - Count_NotAtCaseness) * 100

25,241 / (56,972 - 3,336) * 100 = 47.1%

Sub-national reliable recovery rates are published in the Monthly Activity Data File as column ‘Percentage_ReliableRecovery’.

The chart below compares recovery, reliable improvement, and reliable recovery rates across a period of thirteen months.

Figure 4: Percentage of eligible referrals having recovered, reliably improved, and reliably recovered, September 2020 to September 2021 England
Download the data for this chart Figure 4: Percentage of eligible referrals having recovered, reliably improved, and reliably recovered, September 2020 to September 2021 England

The chart below shows a further breakdown of the referrals that finished a course of treatment in Quarter 2 2021/22.

[To be added once the data issues have been fixed]

Consistently, a higher proportion show reliable improvement than move to recovery; this is because reliable improvement only looks at the scale of change, and not whether the referral has moved below the clinical caseness threshold.

Reliable recovery, which requires both recovery and reliable improvement, is the most stringent measure and therefore has the lowest rate.

Each quarter, more detailed data are published about recovery, reliable improvement and reliable recovery. The most recent quarterly data, Quarter 1 2021/22, can be found at: http://digital.nhs.uk/pubs/iaptjun21.

For an explanation of the terms used and further information about how measures are calculated in IAPT see the 'Guide to IAPT data and publications' at www.digital.nhs.uk/iaptreports

  

⁶ See p16-17 of The Mandate: A mandate from the Government to NHS England: April 2015 to March 2016, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/386221/NHS_England_Mandate.pdf

 

Last edited: 21 September 2023 5:18 pm

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