Chronic Illnesses: Mental Health
(asked on 3rd June 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support the mental health of people with long term conditions.
On 21 March 2018, NHS England and NHS Improvement along with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health published 'The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Pathway for People with Long-term Physical Health Conditions and Medically Unexplained Symptoms' which is available at the following link:
The guidance outlines the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) pathway, and accompanying benchmarks, to support the national expansion of IAPT services for adults with depression and anxiety disorders who also have long term conditions (such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or muscular dystrophy) and medically unexplained symptoms (such as chronic fatigue syndrome or irritable bowel syndrome). The expansion will see IAPT services co-located in existing primary and secondary care physical health pathways.