Exclusive The Government is set to crack down on ‘unregulated private sector’ therapists and counsellors, primary care minister Stephen Kinnock has announced at Pulse LIVE in London today.
In answer to a GP delegate’s question, he said he was ‘very worried that there are diagnoses being given out by the private independent sector which are not rooted in clinical expertise’.
He added that ‘demand just continues to go through the roof’ partly as a result of these private sector counsellors and therapists.
It comes after health secretary Wes Streeting suggested that mental health is overdiagnosed in an interview on BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.
After being asked about what the Government was doing to reform mental health provision, Mr Kinnock restated the Government’s pledge to recruit more mental health professionals.
He said: ‘We are going forward with our manifesto commitment to recruit 8,500 more mental health specialists across the country. And we’re also putting a mental health practitioner, specialist, trained practitioner into every school in the country. That program is being rolled out and being led by my colleague, Baroness Merron.’
He doubled down on Mr Streeting’s comments around overdiagnosis, and placed the blame for overdiagnosis on private sector counsellors.
He said: ‘I think the Secretary of State alluded to that in his interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, and I think that we’ve got to get on top of this, and we’re absolutely committed to do so.
‘Because if we put 8,500 more mental health specialists in, and specialists in schools, and the other measures the Government seeking to take, and yet demand just continues to go through the roof – partly because people are being diagnosed in a way that isn’t rooted in clinical expertise – then you know you’ve got a real problem.
‘I think that we’ve got an issue with an unregulated private sector. I’ve really been quite struck by how easy it is to set yourself up as a counsellor or the therapist and start charging for it. When you look at countries like Sweden or the Netherlands, other countries, you have to have six years of training before you can set yourself up on that basis.
‘I am also very worried that there are diagnoses being given out by the private independent sector which are not rooted in clinical expertise, and that is an issue. I have commissioned my officials to look at that.’
The Government is looking to reduce the number of people on disability payments – Personal independent payments (PIP) – and Mr Kinnock said that this was connected to the numbers of people with mental health problems.
He said: ‘The numbers waiting for support and diagnosis are huge, the challenges that we have around the impact that it’s having on the workforce.
‘One of the big stories of this week has been the number of people who are economically inactive because they can’t because they’ve got issues with their mental health and can’t work as a result.
‘So this is an issue that’s really holding our country back. It’s really bad for the people who are suffering. It’s really bad for the economy. It’s putting massive pressure on our health and care system.’
Mr Streeting said on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: ‘I think definitely there’s an overdiagnosis, but there’s too many people being written off and… too many people who just aren’t getting the support they need. So if you can get that support to people much earlier, then you can help people to either stay in work or get back to work.’
It comes as the Government announced changes to the welfare system, in a bid to take more people off disability benefits, which it says has ‘skyrocketed’ in recent years.
In the same session, Mr Kinnock stressed the Government’s commitment to the GP partnership model following the news that it has agreed to agree a major new contract by 2028.
The reason the private sector therapists thrive is the total lack of NHS Therapy services. As a GP I am more likely to receive a rejection than an acceptance of a referral.
I totally agree with Rami as you said.
I think they are confusing two issues; overdiagnosis and increase in health related benefits and the first is not causative to the second although they are related.
I think there is an element of incentivisation in the system for health related benefits partly because benefits are more secure and can be more financially lucrative partly because we have a gig economy with exploitative terms, insecure badly paid work which in itself causes a lot of stress.
That can lead people to want labels but there is an overall driving up of labelling generally in society which seems an ‘identity’ type culture-?led by social media and the drive to be defined by superficiality, by the outside world etc with less of an inner private identity but also the media flurries with the latest health diagnosis-including mental health, neurodiversity and whatever is the latest health ‘story’; endometriosis, menopause, etc. Society is now health obsessed and diagnosis obsessed and it is not either private therapists or doctors driving this. It’s external.
And it’s not the cause of increased ‘disability’ benefits, although it can be part of the paperwork to get them.
But there’s a truck load of people not on benefits chasing every diagnosis under the sun and everything seems extremely over medicalised now.
I mean I am happy to prescribe any appropriate meds that may help with any condition from hrt to ssris; heck I’m on both and funding them great.
But it’s the immense interest in the labels and the focus on diagnosis and the tendency for people to crave diagnoses and find them some form of identity or end in themselves.
Better to get a life. And get a job. Whenever possible. More productive and more fulfilling
I wonder if he realises that the best way to ‘crack down’ on unregulated private therapists is to render them redundant and unnecessary by adequately funding the NHS to heal the sick instead of them needing to pay out of what little they have to gain any help?
GPs can only do so much, and without support from NHS therapists and assessing Doctors/Psychologists, are unable to meet the need and in a timely fashion provide the diagnoses and support that is needed.
Secondary Care NHS mental health services do not help by declining to assess, diverting to private care first, and not having any staff to provide the needed support, whilst in fact also using non-doctor staff to overdiagnose and overmedicate. But primarily by not highlighting loudly enough the amount of unmet need that needs additional funding – every patient knocked off an NHS List for ‘lack of capacity’ is one added to the statistic of ‘not needing support’ quite wrongly !
Part of the problem is there does not seem to be any control over right to choose we have no way of finding out how these people get their contracts