THE NHS is failing to offer people with mental illness a full choice of psychological counselling and therapies, says a new report from the Centre for Social Justice.
The report, ‘Commissioning Effective Talking Therapies,’ is highly critical of the NHS’s talking therapy service, and urges it to slash its red tape and use therapists from the private and voluntary sector to give people more choice.
Currently, many therapies offered by specialists in the private and voluntary sector are not yet recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), as it requires the same level of supporting evidence as treatments for chemotherapy or open heart surgery.
The scale of mental illness is startling, with one in four adults affected at some point during their lifetime, and one in six experiencing symptoms at any one time – making mental illness the largest single cause of disability in our society.
The cost to the economy is estimated at £105 billion annually, with a loss of around £13 billion in earnings sustained by people of working age.
