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The Society has issued a media release on the new NHS white paper.
It quotes Dr Jenny Taylor, the Chair of the DCP. That quotation is taken from a longer statement by here, which we reproduce here.
The British Psychological Society welcomes the government's White Paper outlining its proposals for improving the National Health Service.
The aim that services will be led by clinicians in partnership with service users is a worthy one, but it is important that the clinicians in question are able to interrogate the evidence base in order to ensure services are delivered in line with new scientific findings, rather than in accordance with individual clinicians' preferences. We hope that the proposed changes will indeed bring improvements to services but the possible of fragmentation of services needs to be monitored.
We welcome the intention to promote joint working between Health and Social Care, but would highlight the continuing anomaly regarding children's services, where children's mental health straddles two government departments (the Department of Education, and the Department of Health) and therefore risks getting lost between the two. We would welcome a model whereby all of our citizen's health and social care needs, whatever their age, were overseen by one department (a Department of Health and Social Care).
We are delighted by the intended focus on outcomes rather than process, and hope that the government will be able to live up to this aspiration by ensuring that outcomes and quality standards are based on the relevant scientific knowledge base.
The Society, and especially its Practitioner Psychologists, would be keen to advise the Government on using the scientific knowledge base of psychology to ensure valid and relevant measures of health and well-being, particularly in the field of mental health. We also welcome the ongoing support of NICE and the development of evidence-based Quality Standards.
The white paper mentions research, and a commitment to the promotion and conduct of research within the NHS. Again, the Society fully supports the importance of the NHS driving as well as using research, and recommends making use of the many applied scientists, such as Practitioner Psychologists, already employed by the NHS, to drive forward this agenda. Too many clinicians with high-level research skills are not being encouraged to use these skills to add to our knowledge base.
We are pleased that the role of the Care Quality Commission will be strengthened, and that it will have a clear focus on safety and quality. We are keen that mental health has a high priority for this government and would recommend that an important indicator of quality of care that should be included in the CQC inspection program is access to evidence-based psychological treatments.
We understand the necessity to reduce waste within the NHS, and suggest that the delivery of psychological healthcare be reviewed to ensure that limited resources are focused on ensuring provision of interventions that are known to have clear benefits.
For more information about Practitioner Psychologists, please visit About Clinical Psychology.
Dr Jenny Taylor
Chair, Division of Clinical Psychology
British Psychological Society'
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