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It may not be generally known that in Britain CBT is a deeply political issue, proposed as a Government-endorsed official Therapy for All, universal panacea.
Member of the House of Lords, and London School Of Economics Professor Richard Layard (Government Happiness Tzar) announced and promoted a policy called "Therapy for All".
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Richard Layard announced the training of 10,000 CBT therapists to address common anxiety, depression amongst the general population and the unemployed circa 2005/6. His promotion of CBT as universal therapy came across as proposing a universal panacea for all of societys ills. Richard Layard gained a lot of press coverage, and government attention for CBT at the time, but the issue of where the 10,000 therapists would come from, and who would pay for their training, was never addressed, and the project quietly sank eventually. Certain persons (ie me) had accurately predicted that the proposal to promote CBT as official Government policy would result in Therapy Turf Wars, and that proponents of other therapy modalities would retaliate.
Lord Layard has since resorted to promoting Happiness as universal panacea, via numerous international conferences and reports.
The Independent reports on Richard Layards plans to train 10,000 CBT therapists. Re Lord Richard Layard [Member of the House of Lords, LSE Economist and Government appointed Happiness Tzar] 2007:
Last year, he published a report calling for a network of 250 treatment centres to be
established staffed by 10,000 new therapists. These would provide
"talking therapies" such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) - a
treatment proven to help relieve low-level depression and anxiety
which enables patients to overcome negative thinking.
Lord Richard Layard to the House of Lords, 2009:
we have an excellent plan for providing face-to-face CBTobviously,
computerised CBT will be there as wellto all adults who need it.. In a debate on the future of CBT in this country we must focus mainly on CBT provided by live therapists to patients in the new way that the Government will make possible in this country. This is the most radical improvement in psychological therapy services ever undertaken.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2516748.ece
'Happiness tsar' warns of therapy funding shortage
By Sophie Goodchild, Chief Reporter
The "Independent": 06 May 2007
Radical plans to set up free "therapy for all" centres across the
country could fail without proper funding, the Government's
"happiness tsar" has warned.
Professor Richard Layard, the Labour peer and No 10 adviser, said he
is concerned that patients suffering from anxiety and depression will
not benefit unless cash is set aside for training up therapists.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Lord Layard said:
"There should be a proper plan for dealing with this problem and not
a bit of a fudge of a bit of money that ends up with the creation of
dumbed-down workforce."
The eminent economist has said he believes mental illness is the
single greatest threat to a happy life. Last year, he published a
report calling for a network of 250 treatment centres to be
established staffed by 10,000 new therapists. These would provide
"talking therapies" such as cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) - a
treatment proven to help relieve low-level depression and anxiety
which enables patients to overcome negative thinking.
Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, has said she
wants to increase the use of counselling and announced the opening of
two talking therapy pilot centres in Doncaster and East London.
This Thursday at a conference in London, Ms Hewitt is expected to
further endorse the long-term benefits of therapy, as opposed to the
quick fix results from anti-depressants, for those suffering from
mild depression and anxiety. However, the Government has yet to
commit to a comprehensive programme for talking therapies on the NHS
on the scale suggested by Lord Layard. He says that unless the money
is set aside now, then neither the patients nor the economy will
benefit.
"I've never said CBT is a magic bullet," said Professor Layard,
professor emeritus of economics at the London School of Economics.
"But there is the danger that if people are not properly trained, the
patients will not benefit."
An estimated one million people suffer from clinical depression and
four million from clinical anxiety in Britainy. But only one in 10
gets to see a therapist and often only after a long wait.
This newspaper revealed earlier this year that around a third of NHS
trusts are struggling with a backlog of patients desperate for
talking therapies. More than 90 per cent of trusts have waiting lists
of longer than a year for CBT. Wakefield West PCT in Yorkshire has a
waiting list of 78 weeks.
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Lord Richard Layard, LSE Economist, etc, to the House of Lords 2009:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2009-03-18a.306.0
.....I should like finally to say a word on children. The programme that I have
been discussing relates to adults, but of course many of those who suffer as
adults also suffered as children. Child mental illness is even more tragic than
for adults. It is also the source of so many of our social problems. Ten per
cent of all children would be diagnosed as suffering from mental illness of all
kinds, and 5 per cent from anxiety disorders for which the prime treatment is
CBT. Of these children only a quarter are currently receiving specialist help or
have seen a specialist in the past year. That is just not good enough. Although
we have child and adolescent mental health services which in many cases are
excellent, their capacity is just too small.
There are many children in real need who get turned away or do not get referred
because the waiting list is too long, and not all the services are delivered in
accordance with the NICE guidelines.
What we now need is a strategy for expanding and upgrading CAMHS as well as
adult services. A number of us have suggested a five-year plan which would train
200 extra child therapists every year and be adequately funded to pay local
services for providing the on-the-job training within the NICE guidelines. I
think that that would be a powerful formula. It would cost no more than 35
million by the final year of the next spending round. I very much hope that the
Minister can undertake that these proposals will be seriously considered for
very high priority in the department's spending bid.
To conclude, we have an excellent plan for providing face-to-face CBTobviously,
computerised CBT will be there as wellto all adults who need it, but it still
needs to be refinanced for the second half. We need to do something similar for
children. I have every hope that the Government will do this because they have
shown their willingness to bite this bullet which had been neglected for so many
decades. This Government have been outstanding so far in their approach to this,
after decades of neglect. I really hope that they will complete the job.
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