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Media contact: Stephen Taylor-Parker, Managing Director, Media Innovations Ltd
Tel: 0113 201 5566 / 5560, Mob: 07703 114236,
Email:
stp@media-innovations.ltd.uk
October 2009
NICE to get choice back!
Clinicians and Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) have regained freedom of choice over products to treat mild to moderate depression, thanks to new guidelines issued on the 28th October 2009 by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
The revised guidance for computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (cCBT) interventions for the treatment of adults with depression ends a three-year monopoly in the NHS whereby Primary Care Trusts in England and Wales had no choice but to use a single recommended supplier.
The new recommendations indicate that other products and approaches may be just as effective, may incur lower intervention costs and will enable Mental Health Commissioners to choose from a range of cCBT solutions that meet local and patient requirements and choice.
Says Stephen Taylor-Parker, whose company, Media Innovations, was among those who had been prevented from operating in the market with its online cCBT product
Living Life to the Full Interactive:
“Our business was seriously disadvantaged by the original NICE guidance which effectively closed the NHS market to us in England and Wales, despite having a product which was equivalent to - and in many respects functionally superior to - the recommended product.”
“Today’s revised guidance removes this unhealthy monopoly and returns freedom of product choice to Mental Health commissioners in the NHS, which will ultimately benefit patients. We’re already negotiating with central purchasing groups within the NHS to agree bulk discounts which will rapidly increase access to these approaches.”
Living Life to the Full interactive (www.llttfi.com) has been developed over 10 years in partnership with Professor Chris Williams, Professor of Psychosocial Psychiatry and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Glasgow. A number of self-help packages addressing depression, bulimia and anorexia have been produced and whilst the Depression product could not be delivered in England and Wales as a result of the earlier NICE guidance, significant sales have made in Scotland, the United States and Canada.
The Living Life to the Full range offers a wide range of resources including cCBT, DVD and book based interventions to support people at low cost.
Notes
1. Media Innovations was originally a spinout company from the University of Leeds in the UK. Media Innovations is a leading provider of multimedia Cognitive Behavioural Therapy training materials for Mental Health, particularly in the areas of Depression, Anxiety, Bulimia and Anorexia. The company is also a significant developer of Risk Management and Diagnostic Support Tools to the medical profession. Multimedia-based products are powerful communication tools, which stimulate the senses of hearing, vision, and touch by delivering a rich combination of media components in an interactive software environment.
2. Professor Christopher Williams is Professor of Psychosocial Psychiatry and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. His main clinical and research interest is in the area of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and in particular in looking at ways of disseminating this approach more widely. He has developed written and computer-based self-help treatments for anxiety, depression and bulimia and is a well-known CBT researcher, trainer and teacher. He is a Past-President of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies - the lead body for CBT in the United Kingdom (www.BABCP.com) - and also a past Governing Board member of the United Kingdom for Psychotherapy (UKCP). He is a Director of Glasgow Institute of Psychosocial Interventions (GIPSI) - which has a focus on training and research in evidence-based psychosocial interventions. He is also a Patron of the charities Triumph over Phobia - a user-led self-help organisation addressing self-management of anxiety (www.triumphoverphobia.com) and also of Anxiety UK - the anxiety disorders charity (www.anxietyuk.org.uk)
A full biography is available at:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/psychologicalmedicine/ourstaff/allstaff/drchriswilliams/
3. Living Life to the Full Interactive offers the individual patient an online six session course which includes a workbook and an assignment every week to encourage a change of behaviour and improve wellbeing. Individuals should be monitored and supported by a practitioner who can check their progress online. Using the clinically validated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy model (CBT), the multi-media programme enables Mental Health and general practitioners in Primary Care Trusts to support people with mild to moderate depression as part of a stepped care intervention.
Living Life to the Full interactive encourages and motivates the progress of individuals through automated reminders and immediate feedback. Those who use the package find it simple, convenient, confidential, anonymous and accessible. In utilising CBT, the package educates the person through identifying patterns of unhelpful behaviour by providing structured, task-driven objectives. Users of the package have described the benefits as follows: straight-forward, easy and user-friendly; a way of being in control because of the convenience of online access: and the anonymity of using a computer made them feel more able to approach a therapist.
Living Life to the Full forms part of a suite of computerised online self-help products (cCBT), which includes interventions for :
All the online interventions are designed for use in primary or secondary care settings and utilise clinically proven cognitive behavioural therapy. Linked DVD and written resources including versions in different languages means that CBT can be accessed by more people – who can work when and how they want to receive the support they need.
4. Link to the NICE revised guidance
http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/pdf/DepressionUpdateFullGuideline.pdf
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