National Audit of Psychological Therapies

What is involved in participating?


 

The NAPT project team provided registered services with a common format to collect audit data. Individual services then collected the data which was analysed centrally.  Individual services received service reports which included comparative findings, enabling them to benchmark their performance and identify areas where they are performing well and areas for improvement.

 

Data collection tools

We developed 4 data collection tools:

 

  • Contextual data about services

 

  • Therapist’s questionnaire about qualifications / professional background.

 

  • Audit of clients completing therapy between 1 September and 30 November 2010

 

  • Service user satisfaction questionnaire and measure of therapeutic alliance – for more information about this tool see Our resources

 

For more information about how the audit tools and methodology were developed see Pilot of the National Audit of Psychological Therapies 2009.

 

 

Audit timetable

  • From April 2010:  Recruitment of sites

 

Recruitment for the audit has now closed. 

 

  • May/June 2010 – Feb 2011:  Data collection

 

Data collection is now complete.

 

This took place in stages using our 4 data collection tools:

 

  • Contextual Questionnaire - a one-off questionnaire about the service, completed between May and October 2010.
  • Therapists' Questionnaire - each therapist completed a one-off questionnaire that asks about their training, experience and the therapies they deliver. This was completed between August and December 2010.
  • Retrospective Audit - an audit of every service user who ended therapy between 1 September and 30 November 2010. In some services, data was taken from case notes, in other services, data was extracted from existing databases.  This was completed between December 2010 and February 2011.
  • Service User Satisfaction Survey - a brief survey was sent out to service users by the participating service on a census date in October or November 2010. Free-post envelopes were supplied so that service users could return the survey anonymously and confidentially to the NAPT project team.

 

  • March – November 2011: Data analysis and report production

 

The NAPT project team have completed data analysis and sent out a report for each service in November 2011. A National Report was also being produced.

 

  • November 2011: Publication of national report

 

 

Getting started

The data collection process began in May 2010. Registration has now closed.

 

Services were asked to consider the following points in preparation for the audit:

 

  • Selecting relevant services – please see the decision tree for clarification of which services are eligible to participate
  • Obtaining approval to participate from the relevant people in your organisation
  • Thinking about how to co-ordinate the audit
  • Thinking of ways of publicising the audit to all stakeholders
  • Considering the role of individual therapists
  • Adapting existing data collection systems
  • Links with IAPT and data extraction from systems such as IAPTUS, PC-MIS
  • Preparing for potential problems



If you want further information on any of these points please contact us.

 

 

 

Where next...


 

 

 

 

 

 

NAPT, 4th Floor Standon House, Mansell Street, London, E1 8AA    Tel: 020 7977 4984   Fax: 020 7481 4831   Email: napt@cru.rcpsych.ac.uk

 

 

 

 

© 2012 Royal College of Psychiatrists