First National Audit of Psychological Therapies for Anxiety and Depression goes live

The first National Audit of Psychological Therapies for Anxiety and Depression (NAPT) has gone live, with its organisers encouraging Psychological services throughout England and Wales to participate.

NAPT is managed by a team at the Royal College of Psychiatrist's Centre for Quality Improvement in partnership with a range of professional and voluntary organisations and claims to be the first national initiative of its kind.

Contact the project team >> 

Online registration: www.rcpsych.ac.uk/napt

It promises to engage participation from all services, teams and individual therapists across England and Wales in a process to evaluate and improve the quality of treatment and care to people who suffer from anxiety and depression.  Primary and secondary care, and voluntary sector services, are eligible for participation in NAPT provided they are funded by the NHS.

Data will be collected on four important dimensions of quality:

• Access - who is offered therapy and how easy is it for people to take up the offer? Data will be collected on people's demographic characteristics and on their waiting times.
• Appropriateness - what kind of therapy is provided and is this consistent with best practice? Data will be collected on the types of therapies being delivered and the extent to which these therapies are in line with NICE guidance will be assessed.
• Acceptability - is the type of therapy offered acceptable to the patient?
  The NAPT project team has developed a service user survey by running several focus groups and feedback sessions with people who have experienced psychological interventions for anxiety and depression.
• Outcomes - do people feel better and are they better able to cope with their anxiety and depression as a result of therapy?
  Data will be collected from available outcome measures at the start and end of therapy, so that services will be able to assess the effectiveness of their therapy.

The audit questionnaires were developed to adequately measure the above dimensions of quality:

• Service Context Questionnaire: a one-off questionnaire giving background information about the participating service
• Therapists Questionnaire: a one-off questionnaire to be completed by each therapist on their training, experience and therapies delivered
• Retrospective Audit Questionnaire: to be completed by the service for each client who has completed or dropped out of treatment between September and November 2010
• Service User Survey: a one-off questionnaire to be returned directly to the NAPT project team, which includes questions on people's experience of accessing therapy, the alliance with their therapist and their perceived outcomes of treatment

The data will be used to provide individual services with specific feedback on their performance and on the views of service users.  Services will also be able to benchmark themselves against national performance.  It will further highlight areas for quality improvement and promote best practice. 

In order for the obtained results to be as meaningful as possible, it is crucial for as many services and therapists to participate in NAPT.

Psychological services throughout England and Wales are encouraged to sign up for NAPT 2010 by contacting the project team directly (napt@cru.rcpsych.ac.uk) or by downloading a registration form online (www.rcpsych.ac.uk/napt).