Electroconvulsive Therapy Accreditation Service report published

The College’s Electroconvulsive Therapy Accreditation Service (ECTAS), which works with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) clinics to assure and improve the quality of the treatment they provide, has published its latest report.

The report shows 1,957 patients received 2,153 acute courses of ECT from 87 clinics across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland throughout 2023. The majority of patients were women (66%) and their average age was 62 years although this ranged from 17 to 95 years old.

Patients were typically being treated for depressive episodes (85%) while others were treated for conditions such as schizophrenia, manic episode and catatonia. Of those who received acute courses, 88% improved to some degree and 66% were ‘much improved’ or ‘very much improved’.

People who receive ECT can also experience side effects and one of the most common is memory loss. Around 13% of patients experienced a subjective worsening of their memory after receiving ECT, while 12% experienced an improvement and 75% stability.

The report – which relates to data from 2023 - makes several recommendations aimed at further improving care that ECT clinics provide. This includes a recommendation that twelve treatments should not be considered a ‘standard course’ and that patients should be provided with treatment plans based on their individual response to the treatment.

All of ECTAS’s previous reports are available on our ECTAS pages alongside other information about the service.

This article was included in our April 2026 members' update.