Options in the care of people with depression

Depression may affect more than one in ten of the UK population at any one time, and cost the NHS in excess of £ 500m per year, with high additional costs in informal care and lost working time. Depression is typically a recurring condition, and more than half of people who experience depression once will go on to have at least one more episode. Up to 90% of patients with depression are treated in primary care, but care can be complex, involving a number of different specialists and requiring access to different forms of treatment. In practice care can become fragmented and reactive rather than proactive.There is also high demand for treatments for depression. Provision of psychological therapies has increased under the NHS ' Improving Access to Psychological Therapies ' programme, but waiting lists remain in some areas. The NIHR has funded important new research which provides evidence for a different way of managing care of people with depression – collaborative care – by co-ordinating this through a designated care manager. A key element of collaborative care is the provision of behavioural activation, a simple psychological therapy. Behavioural activation can be delivered as a standalone therapy too and this Highlight also considers th e evidence for how effective it might be.
Source: Current Awareness Service for Health (CASH) - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news