Common mental health conditions have worsened despite Improving Access to Psychological Therapies

Part 1 of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidty Survey (APMS) for 2023/4 has been published (see website). The last time this survey was sampled was in 2014 (see previous post). 

Despite the proportion of 16 to 74 year olds with common mental health condition symptoms reporting receipt of treatment increasing from 24.4% in 2007 to 39.4% in 2014 to 47.7% in 2023/4, the proportion of 16 to 64 year olds identified with a common mental disorder has also increased from 17.6% in 2007 to 18.9% in 2014 to 22.6% in 2023/4. Services are struggling to cope with a vast increase in demand but need nonetheless apparently continues to increase. The increased service activity, if effective, should be expected to reduce prevalence of mental disorder, not increase it.

Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) was rolled out from 2008 (see eg. previous post). Despite reported rates of improvement over the short-term, longer-term outcome may not be so beneficial (see eg. another previous post). The reality is that hoping for easy answers to mental health problems means that providing increasing resources for services can never meet the perceived need of the population (see eg. previous post). Psychiatry can’t magic away the pain and suffering of being human (see eg. another previous post). It shouldn’t mislead people that a course of medication or a brief psychological therapy will necessarily solve all mental health difficulties. I’m not being nihilistic about psychiatric treatment but the limits to psychiatry do need to be acknowledged. Throwing money at the problem isn’t the whole solution at least.