How EAPs are a highly effective complement to the NHS

How EAPs are a highly effective complement to the NHS

Mental illness caused or exacerbated by the pandemic crisis is predicted to be as big a threat to NHS resources as the virus itself. Up to 20% of adults in the UK are expected to need mental health support in the coming year, says the Centre for Mental Health: 8.5 million people dealing with depression, anxiety and PTSD.

It’s a stark picture showing how employers providing EAP services are an essential wellbeing resource and outlet for demand. EAPs are helping to ease the burden on NHS services, and crucially, offering easier access for employees to mental health support, when and how it’s needed, and at an earlier stage.

A new analysis comparing the use and waiting times for NHS services with EAPs is a clear demonstration of how that’s been working in practice. This looks at data from the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (IAPT) for people dealing with depression and anxiety. When IAPT was first introduced in 2008 it was a major step forward in terms of recognising the importance of mental wellbeing, putting in place a sensible ‘stepped’ approach where patients with mild to moderate symptoms could move from a low intensity intervention (such as guided self-help) to higher intensity therapies (CBT) if necessary.

But the past ten years has seen growing demand for services – alongside higher expectations. The analysis of data from 2018/19 shows that the average waiting time from referral to treatment was 20 days. Waiting times varied substantially across England, from 4 days in Basildon and Brentwood to 61 days in Manchester. Most worryingly, of the patients who needed to ‘step up’ to a second session, half of them had to wait more than 28 days. One in 6 waited over 90 days.  In contrast to this and even given that the EAP data is now quite old, it does show that the average waiting time from referral to first assessment date was 8.8 days.

Higher numbers of patients going through IAPT don’t complete their treatment, for whatever reason, whether that’s because symptoms have improved or people are frustrated by waiting times. Around 43% opt-out of further treatment, compared with 27% using EAPs. The clients who did complete their treatment with IAPT took an average of 6.9 sessions; with EAPs this was four. 70.5% of EAP clients reached a planned ending with a ‘reliable improvement’ (in terms of recognised measures of anxiety and depressive symptoms such as the GAD-7 and CORE-OM scores). Through the IAPT, 67.4% achieved a reliable improvement.

There are caveats about the comparisons. The IAPT deals with a wider range of cases on the mental health spectrum than an EAP, and the data on the EAP side is now quite dated. But overall the analysis demonstrates some principles around how EAPs are a highly effective complement to the NHS. They widen access, making sure more people are seen more quickly and before symptoms worsen, especially for mild to moderate mental health conditions. Most of all, EAPs are playing their part in keeping people in work through the most difficult of times.