Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT)
Find out about our four IAPT projects, and view the published documents.
The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health set out a commitment to expand and improve IAPT services, aiming to increase access to psychological therapies for 600,000 more people with common mental health problems each year. This includes people with long-term conditions and medically unexplained symptoms.
"I can go to one place, which is local to me, to receive care for my mental and physical needs. My mental health problem will be treated with the same urgency, compassion and respect as my physical health problem."
Find out about the NCCMH's IAPT Ethnic Inequalities Policy Review, which is in development.
You can also download our IAPT pathway short guide (2018) to expanding IAPT services for people with long-term conditions (LTC) and medically unexplained symptoms, commissioned by NHS England. Plus the accompanying full implementation guidance and helpful resources (2018).
You can read both our report on the early implementers of IAPT LTC services and The IAPT Manual for delivering services (published 2018, updated 2023) below.
The NCCMH has been commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory to develop an understanding of the nature of the ethnic inequalities that exist in IAPT services in England, to develop a set of recommendations on how services can improve access,
outcomes and experience for people from minoritised ethnic groups. For more information visit the IAPT Ethnic Inequalities Policy Review webpage.
The following report was produced in collaboration with UCL and evaluates Wave 1 of the IAPT LTC early implementer sites:
We also developed The IAPT Manual, which is for all commissioners, providers and clinicians of services that deliver psychological therapies. It is an essential handbook for IAPT services, describing the IAPT model in detail and how to deliver it, with a focus on the importance of providing National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)-recommended care: