Radio Presenter Backs Talk Therapy
25/04/2007
Gloucestershire is leading the UK in widening access to psychological therapy for people who suffer from anxiety and depression.
Experts from Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust have developed their own training programme to tackle a nationwide shortage of therapists. The project will be highlighted at a prestigious international conference this summer.
Mild to moderate anxiety and depression are the most common mental health problems. In Gloucestershire alone there are an estimated 30,000 sufferers.
The Partnership Trust has already been at the forefront nationally of providing more options for treating these problems with less reliance on medication.
Since 2000 its Primary Mental Health Development Team has introduced new community services across the county. These include stress management courses, with open access and no need for referral by your GP, and guided self-help by phone. There are also courses in anger management and a new one in self-esteem, which has just been successfully piloted.
The treatments are all part of psychological counselling known as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT involves helping people think about a difficult situation or relationship in a more constructive way, so they feel differently about it and therefore react and behave differently.
Now the Trust is to make CBT widely available for the first time on an individual face-to-face basis. The government wants CBT offered nationwide to all who need it, in book or computerised form but also face to face. However, there are not enough therapists across the UK to deliver all this.
The Partnership Trust’s team has therefore designed a special training course to help overcome the shortage. It teaches a wide variety of staff, from GPs and graduate mental health workers to nurses, health visitors and social workers, how to deliver the therapy. The programme of 10 weekly sessions is intensive, with master classes also available to hone their skills even more.
24 Gloucestershire Partnership staff received the training as a pilot project last year. A further 48 are being trained this year. NHS trusts throughout the South West and beyond have applied for places on the courses for their staff. The Department of Health is so impressed it has cited the programme as an example of best practice to be followed across the country.
The training is being delivered in collaboration with the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre (OCTC), an internationally acclaimed centre of excellence in the field.
The Gloucestershire team’s work is to be presented to the CBT World Congress in Barcelona in July by Primary Mental Health Psychology Lead, Alison Sedgwick-Taylor.
The new therapies and training scheme are being backed by BBC Radio Gloucestershire presenter Pete Wilson. Seven years ago Pete attended one of the first stress management workshops in the county. He says the two-hour sessions over a six-week period changed his life.
“I was suffering a lot of stress at the time following the death of my mother from cancer. The therapy put everything in perspective and made me realise things were not as bad as I thought. I’m very excited the Primary Mental Health Development Team are now passing on their skills to doctors and nurses. They understand people’s problems and know how to help them. I think it’s fantastic that more people will now benefit more quickly.”
Caroline Andrews, Primary Mental Health Lead for Gloucestershire Partnership NHS Trust, said: “I am delighted that Gloucestershire residents are starting to be able to access and benefit from cutting edge effective treatments. This is being made possible by the enthusiasm and dedication of a small team of creative health professionals.
I am also proud their work is now being recognized on a national and international level.”
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