Publication, Part of Psychological Therapies, Reports on the use of IAPT services
Psychological Therapies: reports on the use of IAPT services, England, September 2022 Final including a report on the IAPT Employment Advisers pilot and Quarter 2 2022-23 data
Official statistics, Experimental statistics
Implementation of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs)
Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) were formally established across the NHS in England on 1 September 2022, with the introduction of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and Integrated Care Partnerships (ICPs), and abolition of CCGs. For more information on the change and the impact on September's publication, please see the relevant section in the Overview page.
Note NHS Digital expects July and August data to be updated with the ICB/sub-ICB breakdowns by the end of January 2023.
8 December 2022 09:30 AM
First Treatment will now be referred to as 'Accessing Services'
Note: The measures that previously referred to First Treatment will refer to Accessing Services going forward. The impacted measures are in September monthly and quarterly activity data files, as well as the key measures timeseries data file. The change in naming convention does not impact the data itself.
The list of measures and corresponding new names are given below:
| Measure ID | New measure name |
| M031 | Count_AccessingServices |
| M032 | Count_AccessingServices28days |
| M033 | Count_AccessingServices29to56days |
| M034 | Count_AccessingServices57to90days |
| M035 | Count_AccessingServicesOver90days |
| M036 | Count_AccessingServices6Weeks |
| M037 | Count_AccessingServices18Weeks |
| M052 | Count_AccessingServices6WeeksFinishedCourseTreatment |
| M053 | Percentage_AccessingServices6WeeksFinishedCourseTreatment |
| M054 | Count_AccessingServices18WeeksFinishedCourseTreatment |
| M055 | Percentage_AccessingServices18WeeksFinishedCourseTreatment |
8 December 2022 00:00 AM
Outcomes
Outcomes in IAPT are measured in terms of three measures:
recovery,
reliable improvement,
and reliable recovery.
Recovery
Recovery in IAPT is measured in terms of ‘caseness’ – a term which means a referral has severe enough symptoms of anxiety or depression to be regarded as a clinical case. A referral has moved to recovery if they were defined as a clinical case at the start of their treatment (‘at caseness’) and not as a clinical case at the end of their treatment, measured by scores from questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.
The Government target is that 50% of eligible referrals to IAPT services should move to recovery.⁶
49.8% of eligible referrals moved to recovery
Reliable improvement
A referral has shown reliable improvement if there is a significant improvement in their condition following a course of treatment, measured by the difference between their first and last scores on questionnaires tailored to their specific condition.
66.5% of referrals finishing a course of treatment showed reliable improvement
Reliable recovery
A referral has reliably recovered if they meet the criteria for both the recovery and reliable improvement measures. That is, they have moved from being a clinical case at the start of treatment to not being a clinical case at the end of treatment, and there has also been a significant improvement in their condition.
46.7% of referrals reliably recovered
The chart below compares recovery, reliable improvement, and reliable recovery rates across a period of thirteen months.
The chart below shows a further breakdown of the referrals that finished a course of treatment in Quarter 2 2022/23.
Consistently, a higher proportion show reliable improvement than move to recovery; this is because reliable improvement only looks at the scale of change, and not whether the referral has moved below the clinical caseness threshold.
Reliable recovery, which requires both recovery and reliable improvement, is the most stringent measure and therefore has the lowest rate.
Each quarter, more detailed data are published about recovery, reliable improvement and reliable recovery. The most recent quarterly data, Quarter 2 2022/23, can be found at: Psychological Therapies: reports on the use of IAPT services, England, September 2022 Final including a report on the IAPT Employment Advisers pilot and Quarter 2 2022-23 data - NDRS (digital.nhs.uk).
For an explanation of the terms used and further information about how measures are calculated in IAPT see the 'Guide to IAPT data and publications' at Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) data set reports - NHS Digital
⁶ See p16-17 of The Mandate: A mandate from the Government to NHS England: April 2015 to March 2016, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/386221/NHS_England_Mandate.pdf
Last edited: 8 May 2024 1:11 pm