People living across Lancashire and South Cumbria have been asked to share their views on access to talking therapies to treat common mental health conditions in adults.

Across Lancashire and South Cumbria, there are a number of services available to residents, which involve free groups, courses and one-to-one therapy sessions to help people understand what they are going through and build their confidence.

The Lancashire Health and Care Partnership is now looking to gather the views of residents who have used the services – to assess their experiences – and also people living with a mental health problem who have not accessed the services, to understand why this is the case.

To do this, an online survey has been produced which can be accessed at https://iaptlsc.creativeworld.co.uk/

The survey will remain open until 5pm on Tuesday 31 May 2022 and if you don’t have access to the internet and would prefer a paper survey, please call 01282 858200 and ask for Susan Hugill.

Fleur Carney, director for mental health, learning disability and autism at Lancashire Health and Care Partnership, said:

“While each provider may offer a slightly different approach, the teams generally provide screening assessments and psychological interventions to people living with common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

“They provide a range of evidence-based psychological interventions, where all therapies follow guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

“There are a variety of ways residents may be offered help depending on their needs, these include group interventions, telephone contacts or individual sessions. 

“The IAPT service however is not a crisis service and is therefore not appropriate for people who are in crisis or who need urgent help.”

There are four providers who offer these services, and residents can self-refer into any of them, meaning they don’t need to see a GP first. They are:

Lancashire Women – for men and women aged 16 and over who live in East Lancashire - https://lancashirewomen.org/get-support/therapy-for-you

Mindsmatter – for men and women aged 16 and over who live anywhere in Lancashire except Blackpool - https://www.lscft.nhs.uk/Mindsmatter

South Cumbria First Step – for men and women aged 18 and over who live anywhere in South Cumbria - https://www.lscft.nhs.uk/first-step

Blackpool Healthier Minds Service (Formally Supporting Minds) – for men and women aged 16 and over who live in Blackpool - https://www.bfwh.nhs.uk/our-services/supporting-minds/

The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) program began in 2008 and has transformed the treatment of adult anxiety disorders and depression in England. IAPT is widely recognised as the most ambitious programme of talking therapies in the world and in the past year alone more than one million people accessed IAPT services for help to overcome their depression and anxiety, and better manage their mental health.

Fleur added:

“Recent times and the challenges we have all faced have understandably had an impact on people’s mental health and the need for easily accessible mental health support across Lancashire and South Cumbria is now more urgent than ever.

“We are keen to learn of people’s experiences of accessing the IAPT service, but equally we would like to learn more about the reasons people may be hesitant to use the service.

“I would encourage everyone to take the time to share their views. The feedback from the surveys will be used to create some focus groups to explore the themes and enable us to further develop and enhance our services.”

For more information on IAPT, please visit the Lancashire Health and Care Partnership website at www.healthierlsc.co.uk/mentalhealth