15 JANUARY 2020
By David Tuller, DrPH
Since 2008, the National Health Service (NHS) in England has been rolling out a program known as
Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). Initially focused on patients with mental health issues like depression and anxiety disorders, IAPT was then expanded to include those who are also simultaneously suffering from “long-term conditions” and so-called “medically unexplained symptoms” (MUS). IAPT has cited 50% “recovery” rates from its interventions, but these claims are not especially credible, as Liverpool consultant psychologist Michael Scott has documented on his informative blog,
CBT Watch.
Meanwhile, MUS experts who promote IAPT—some of them close academic colleagues of the lead PACE investigators–have regularly exaggerated the estimated costs of these ailments to the NHS. Specifically, they have misquoted a seminal study in their field of expertise and claimed that MUS patients accounted for 10 % of total NHS costs (in England). The actual figure from the study was that people of working-age with MUS accounted for 10 % of costs for that age group, not total NHS costs. The mistake more than tripled the apparent economic impact of MUS. Last year, two major journals—the
British Journal of General Practice and
BMJ Open–corrected papers they had published after I alerted them to these errors.
There is plenty of evidence that the IAPT’s hopes and claims exceed its current grasp
