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news.In a move that could put an end to the notion of a 'Prozac nation,' UK health secretary Patricia Hewitt has announced a major new program to help patients with depression gain better access to counseling and talking therapies.
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At the moment, many people with mild to moderate depression find it difficult to access talking therapies, with services patchily spread across the country. This is despite clinical evidence showing that better access to therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help cure depression and reduce time off work due to ill-health.
The program, announced by Patricia Hewitt in a speech to the UK National Mental Health Partnership Conference, consists of two demonstration sites in Doncaster and Newham, which will be linked to a regional network of local improvement programs.
The pilot schemes have been given GBP3.7 million funding over two years from the UK Department of Health. The two sites have been chosen because they serve very different demographics with different health needs, and they offer different treatment models such as community-based, voluntary sector-led, or employer-led.
Announcing the launch of the program, Ms Hewitt said, “I hope that these pilot sites will provide real, tangible evidence of the effectiveness of investing in talking therapies. They will help break the cycle of deprivation, where poor health leads to unemployment and wasted lives as people fail to reach their full potential.”
“This could be the beginning of a dramatic advance in mental health,” added Rethink chief executive Cliff Prior. “We know from our members that there is a huge demand for talking therapies. We also know that there is already a strong evidence base to support these types of interventions. We hope that the pilot sites will report quickly and positively so that this initiative can become a full national program available to everyone who needs it.”
Improving access to talking therapies also has the potential to save the UK economy millions of pounds by helping people with mild to moderate depression get back into employment and off incapacity benefit. About one in three of the 1.3 million people claiming long-term incapacity benefit in the UK has a mental health problem, mostly mild to moderate depression.