Depressive Illnesses: Medical Treatments

(asked on 21st February 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the accessibility of NICE-recommended treatments for patients at risk of recurrent depression in England.


This question was answered on 1st March 2017

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a number of clinical guidelines for mental health conditions that recommend psychological therapies. NICE’s guidelines on this topic, recommendations on the use of specific drugs, interventional procedures and computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can be found at the following link:

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/conditions-and-diseases/mental-health-and-behavioural-conditions/depression

Clinical guidelines represent best practice and should be taken fully into account by clinicians.

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme provides NICE approved services to people in England with common mental health conditions including depression. Since the start of the IAPT Programme in 2008, more than four million adults have entered the IAPT programme. Of that four million, over 2.7 million have completed treatment and over 950,000 are in recovery.

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