NHS Talking Therapies inspire Norway's health leaders

Leaders from our NHS Berkshire Talking Therapies team have headlined a healthcare conference in Norway this month to inspire their Nordic counterparts to consider how they could learn from the NHS.

Over 280 psychological therapists and managers from 64 regional teams across Norway attended the national event in Oslo to hear a ‘TED’ style talk from Dr Alison Salvadori, Head of Service and a practicing consultant clinical psychologist.

NHS Berkshire Talking Therapies for anxiety and depression is a service offering short courses of therapy to people with common mental health problems such as trouble sleeping, low motivation and mood, worrying too much or feeling on edge.

Treatment and support is based on psychological therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and counselling rather than medication and available free of charge on the NHS.

Alison spoke about how the NHS in England has pioneered the use of data to better understand and respond to our patients’ needs and plan how our services are run.

She gave the example of a client from Berkshire named Claire who had stopped doing activities she usually enjoys, such as swimming and exercising outdoors, and was experiencing relationship difficulties – common signs of low mood or depression.

It was only by asking Claire to complete a specific questionnaire that Alison was able to understand that her symptoms were in keeping with Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

Alison then used this information to choose the right treatment approach and repeated the questionnaire at each appointment to measure how she responded to treatment.

This enabled Alison to adapt the support as needed. Claire went on to make a full recovery after fewer than 20 sessions.

Nicola Farrin, Operational and Performance Manager with NHS Berkshire Talking Therapies, meanwhile delivered a talk for Norway’s mental health business leaders.

She spoke about how we track trends in our patient data to research new treatments, understand and act on areas of concern and plan and even secure development funding for improvements at a service level.

Observations have included how waiting times, group size, and number of treatment sessions can all affect patient recovery.

Service developments made as a result have included setting up new employment support teams to help people find a job or stay in work and developing new groups for people with worry.

Dr Salvadori said after the event: “It was an honour to be invited to Norway to share some of our learnings from setting up local psychological services on the international stage. NHS Berkshire Talking Therapies is widely regarded as one of the longest established and innovative services in England. I believe that being able to evidence what is working, and what isn’t, has been key to helping us expand from a service that supported 50 Berkshire residents when we opened in 2008 to around 28,000 patients last year.”

Alison also spoke about the different elements of running a service and how having the right admin support staff, such as trained call handlers, data analysts and researchers, enables therapists to focus their efforts on delivering the best possible clinical care for local communities.

How the visit came about