When NHS Talking Therapies first launched in 2008, 40,000 people received treatment for depression and anxiety disorders, while over 670,000 people were treated this year. The service collects outcome data from 98% of people who complete a course of treatment, creating one of the largest and most complete mental health datasets in the world. Yet despite its scale and quality, this data has remained vastly underused in research.
This creates an enormous opportunity to better understand how mental health conditions are identified and treated in practice. For example, we know relatively little about how anxiety disorders and depression are recorded in primary care, which clinical codes are used, and how recording practices vary between GP practices, regions, and patient groups.
As demand for mental health support continues to rise, so does the need to better understand how NHS Talking Therapies are delivered - and which approaches are most effective for specific patient groups - so that we can better identify inequalities, improve care, and evaluate the effectiveness of services.
Read the full story on the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science website.