Man waits eight years for mental health therapy as services hit by demand

A man has waited eight years to get adequate mental health care, as waiting lists for therapy grow.

Myles Cook, 47, from Essex, lives with severe depression and has been fighting to get one-to-one counselling for eight years but he has been told there are not enough therapists locally to respond to the demand.

Instead, he has been referred to group sessions, which he said were “detrimental” to his condition and manages his condition with medication but said he did not find that helpful either.

He said: “If you’re not getting help, and all you keep getting are pills and pills that don’t seem to be doing much. It might take the edge off but it doesn’t really do anything for my depression and because of the way the benefits system works, I’m not getting any therapy If I’m not on tablets, they’ll probably kick me off on my benefits because I’m not being treated.”

“I take the tablets, the psychiatric medications, I keep taking them although they’re not helpful because I need to have something to prove that I’m being treated to keep my benefits.”

At least 95% of patients needing NHS talking therapy services, called IAPT, should receive treatment within 18 weeks. But figures previously uncovered by The Independent showed that just one in five patients have their second IAPT appointment within three months.

And the NHS has failed to meet its target of having 1.6 million patients seen by IAPT services last year. Data published last year shows this was missed by 400,0000 at the end of 2021-22.

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Source: The Independent, 16 January 2023