Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance NHS England publishes on minimising drop-outs from the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.

There is currently no published guidance on minimising patients dropping out of treatment in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. If a service has identified high levels of patient drop out they are encouraged to conduct a local audit in to specific parts of the pathway to identify where drop out levels are high and reasons for this.

Last year the National Improving Access to Psychological Therapies team provided a number of recovery workshops across the country which included presentations from services that have developed strategies to manage drop-out rates and ‘did not attends’ within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. These workshops were open and available to all Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services. The National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health plans to publish an Evidence Based Treatment Pathway for Common Mental Health Disorders later in the year which is expected to include guidance in this area.