Recurring concern

Unreliable access to talking therapies

First to latest report 31 Jan 2014 — 6 Mar 2025

Reports that mention this concern
11
Times this concern has been raised
12
Stated actions linked to this concern
21

What this concern includes

Includes failures in the dedicated talking-therapies access pathway, including referral eligibility and acceptance criteria, referral routes, service-user communication about referral status, waiting-list management and timely provision of talking therapies where these deficiencies can prevent or delay appropriate support.

What is not included
  • Excludes generic mental-health service access or referral failures that are not specifically tied to talking therapies.
  • Excludes failures in the quality or clinical content of therapy after treatment has commenced.
  • Excludes generic staffing, communication or capacity deficiencies unless they directly impair access to talking therapies.
  • Excludes access failures for other specialist mental-health services unless the reports explicitly support their inclusion in the same talking-therapies pathway.

Reports and published responses 11 reports

See individual reports that have raised this concern, and the actions taken in response

  1. Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire

    AI-generated summary

    Lee Jay Bonsall · Prevention of Future Deaths report

    This summary was generated using AI from the published report. Please read the original report for the complete account.

    Report summary

    Lee Jay Bonsall was found hanging from a bannister rail at his home on 3 March 2012, and the inquest recorded the medical cause of death as asphyxia by hanging, with intent unclear. Concerns related to citalopram being prescribed on repeat and the ten-month waiting time for psychotherapy.

    Read the report on judiciary.uk

    Source evidence

    How this individual concern was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the report wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Delays in access to psychotherapy making it an unavailable alternative to anti-depressant medication

    Wider context from the report

    “(2) The ten month waiting times for psychotherapy effectively means that this is not a viable alternative to anti-depressant medication and it might well be that a review of these waiting times is appropriate. ”

    Source location

    Lee Jay Bonsall · Prevention of Future Deaths report
    Page 2 · concerns

    Open source report

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Develop revised mental-health access and waiting-time standards to improve parity with physical-health services.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “The Department and NHS England are committed to ending this imbalance. We believe that it is vital to develop and implement new access and waiting time standards to have true parity of esteem. We are committed to providing access to services and waiting times on a par with physical health.”

    Source location

    2014-0044-Response-by-Department-of-Health-1
    Page 3 · response
    Published 31 January 2014

    Open published response

    Source evidence

    How this respondent action was interpreted

    PFD Monitor created a concise, searchable interpretation from the published response wording shown below.

    PFD Monitor interpretation

    Implement revised mental-health access and waiting-time standards through a phased programme beginning in April 2015.

    Verbatim wording from the response

    “The Department and NHS England are committed to ending this imbalance. We believe that it is vital to develop and implement new access and waiting time standards to have true parity of esteem. We are committed to providing access to services and waiting times on a par with physical health.”

    Source location

    2014-0044-Response-by-Department-of-Health-1
    Page 3 · response
    Published 31 January 2014

    Open published response

Actions and positions describe what organisations say in published responses. Implementation is not independently verified.

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Data last updated 7 September 2026