10,000 extra clinical psychologists and therapists could be recruited to treat people with depression

September 13, 2005
by Angela Hussain

Around 10,000 extra clinical psychologists and therapists could be recruited into the health service to treat the rising number of people with depression and anxiety.

It follows a statement by an influential government adviser that ministers are "devoted to the idea" of fulfilling an NHS need for more therapists to tackle the problem of depression and anxiety which costs the UK billions in incapacity benefit payments.

Lord Richard Layard - who wrote the Downing Street strategy paper, 'Mental Health: Britain's Biggest Social Problem? - envisages that 250 new treatment centres would be the base from which the clinical psychologists and therapists would work.

Lord Layard envisages that each centre, many attached to a GP surgery, would have around 20 staff. Half would be clinical psychologists and half therapists, who might be mental health nurses or social workers with two years extra training. The basic course of treatment would provide patients with 10 sessions.

If ministers give the plans the go ahead, the centres would herald an unprecedented boost to the provision and accessibility of psychological therapies - particularly cognitive behavioural therapy - and the recruitment and training over the next decade of clinical psychologists and therapists

"The NHS needs 10,000 more people trained to deliver psychological therapies if it is to tackle Britain's biggest social problem," Lord Layard said yesterday in a conference speech in London.

"Psychological therapy should be freely available on the NHS. At present people with depression or anxiety generally get pills or nothing.

In December last year, the government's national institute for clinical excellence (NICE) advised that people with mild to moderate depression, or with moderate anxiety, may benefit more from non-drug treatments such as counselling and therapy.

Lord Layard told the Guardian newspaper: "There is a tremendous amount of energy being devoted to this idea [of new treatment centres] in all the relevant government departments. I am thrilled with the response."

See also:
Dec 6, 2004: No evidence that SSRI antidepressants likely to increase suicidal behaviour, watchdog announces - guidelines also issued for treatment of depression

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