Talking therapies for depression given £170m boost27 Feb 2008
Extra funding of £170 million has been announced by the government to increase the amount of 'talking therapies' offered to patients with depression.The funding comes as part a new programme to train an extra 3,600 psychological therapists to provide greater access to cognitive behavioural therapies for people with anxiety disorders and depression.Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) say treatment for depression and anxiety should include psychological therapies as part of evidence-based care.The government says improving access to these therapies is a priority and claims there is evidence that they can be as effective as drugs in the short-term and longer lasting in the long-term.The funding announcement follows a report in the journal PLoS Medicine which said 'new generation' antidepressants such as Prozac only benefit some very severely depressed patients.Although manufacturers of the antidepressants said studies have shown they are beneficial, the report raised the issue of using other therapies to treat depression than drugs alone."More than one in six people suffer from mental health problems such as anxiety, stress and depression at any one time and GPs spend a third of their time dealing with people with these common mental health problems," said health minister Ivan Lewis."For many people, prescribing medication is a successful treatment but psychological therapies have proved to be as effective as drugs in tackling these common mental health problems and are often more effective in the longer term."The decision to train more psychological therapists follows two successful trials in Newham and Doncaster.These resulted in "impressive" recovery rates, "excellent" recording of treatment outcomes and "significant" achievement in helping people off statutory sick pay.
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