Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department has taken to (a) monitor and (b) maintain standards of obsessive compulsive disorder counselling provided by (i) the NHS and (ii) the private healthcare sector.

Most National Health Service funded counselling services for obsessive compulsive disorder are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups and delivered through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme through a variety of providers.

The Department along with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) are conducting a review of regulated activities and will be considering the regulation of psychological therapy services as part of this review. Psychological therapies services are not currently inspected unless they are provided within secondary mental health services and meet CQC criteria. We are looking to consult any proposals from this review in 2020.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence published a clinical guideline on the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and body dysmorphic disorder (CG31) in November 2005. Clinical commissioning groups and providers of healthcare are expected to have regard to this national guidance and are responsible for developing their own local approaches to its implementation taking into account local priorities and needs.