1516-117 Talking Therapies

Islington Council invites suitable expressions of interest from suppliers for the delivery of Talking Therapy for people who have suffered bereavement, Talking Therapy for people within Black, Minority Ethnics and Refugee (BMER) communities and Talking Therapy for people who have suffered child sexual abuse and/or domestic violence.

Background Islington Clinical Commissioning Group (Islington CCG) commissions the iCope service from Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&IFT) to provide open access psychological therapies. This is part of the national Programme for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) to deliver all NICE recommended treatment modalities for people with depression and a range of other anxiety disorders. In 2011 a gap analysis was undertaken of access to iCope services, which showed some population groups in Islington were not accessing the services in line with estimated need and were therefore underrepresented within the services. A need was identified for the following: ? better access for Black Minority Ethnic and Refugee (BMER) communities to NICE recommended psychological therapies ? appropriate group and individual therapy for people who have experienced childhood sexual abuse and/or significant domestic violence ? bereavement counselling

The three aforementioned talking therapy services were commissioned to meet these identified needs in 2012 and the contracts are due to expire on 31 July 2016.

A review of these commissioned non-IAPT services was undertaken in 2015 which included an equity audit of Islington IAPT services. The review found that:

• Levels of BMER access to IAPT services has, and continues to, improve, reducing the need for a separately commissioned service for this group. However, there was evidence to suggest that there continues to be a need for a variety of extended treatments to be offered (with a cap on treatment length), in order to meet the more complex needs of a proportion of BMER clients, which cannot be met by the IAPT service.

• There is an ongoing need for therapeutic interventions to support women who have experienced child sexual abuse and/or domestic violence, with capped treatment lengths in line with the capacity of the service.

• There is an ongoing need for bereavement counselling, with treatment length increased from six weeks to up to 12 weeks, in order to deliver more sustainable outcomes. Whilst this would reduce the overall number of people accessing the service each year, a significant proportion would be expected to move into recovery.

In addition to the above, there continues to be a need across all three services to work towards increasing access to services for men, older people, people with sensory needs, and Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender groups.

The requirement

The service will form part of the existing pathway for counselling and psychological therapy services in Islington, complementing existing iCope provision