PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Mental Health Services: Waiting Lists (8 January 2024)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of referrals to NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services waited less than (a) two, (b) four, (c) six and (d) 19 weeks to begin treatment by NHS provider in each quarter between 2021 and 2023.

Asked by:
Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour)

The following table shows the counts and proportions of referrals finishing a course of treatment in the quarter who accessed services, which also indicates starting treatment, up to six and 18 weeks after the referral was received:

Period	Count of finishing referrals that accessed services within 6 weeks	Percentage of all finishing referrals that accessed services within 6 weeks	Count of finishing referrals that accessed services within 18 weeks	Percentage of all finishing referrals that accessed services within 18 weeks
January-March 2021	146,030	92.7	155,475	98.7
April-June 2021	157,886	92.6	168,354	98.8
July-September 2021	156,033	91.8	167,953	98.8
October-December 2021	145,607	90.6	158,229	98.5
January-March 2022	146,002	89.3	160,893	98.4
April-June 2022	148,586	88.9	164,638	98.5
July-September 2022	154,384	88.8	171,022	98.4
October-December 2022	145,220	89.3	159,521	98.1
January-March 2023	153,064	90.2	166,886	98.3
April-June 2023	149,428	90.0	163,593	98.5
July-September 2023	153,145	89.2	168,553	98.1

Source: NHS Digital

Notes:

1. NHS Talking Therapies data are given as a count of patient referrals not patients.
2. A referral has finished a course of treatment in the quarter if the referral ended in the quarter with the patient having at least two attended treatment appointments or Internet Enabled Therapy logs recorded against it.
3. A referral has accessed services when the patient has had their first attended, treatment appointment or an Internet Enabled Therapy log has been recorded for them.
4. Data is taken from the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) dataset held by NHS England. NHS Talking Therapies, for anxiety and depression is a National Health Service programme implemented in England that offers NICE-approved therapies for treating people with depression or anxiety.
5. Waiting times data at two, four and 19 weeks is not routinely produced. Data is shown for each quarter from January-March 2021 to July-September 2023 which is the latest available quarterly data.

Answered by:
Maria Caulfield (Conservative)
15 January 2024