10 March 2006
A shortage of NHS therapists is likely to force the government to outsource a crucial part of its welfare reforms, Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has warned.
Hutton told MPs this week that the NHS does not have the capacity to deal with his ambitious plan to help thousands of people with minor mental health conditions into employment by using cognitive behaviour therapists to prepare them for their new roles.
The extended use of these therapists forms part of Hutton's green paper proposals on welfare reform and has been successfully trialled in the Pathways to Work programme. This extends government support for incapacity benefit claimants through the use of back-to-work advice, NHS treatments and working credits.
Hutton has proposed scrapping IB and replacing it with a two-tier payment structure: a higher rate for those who genuinely cannot work and a lower rate for those who can be moved back into work over time, which includes many people with mental health conditions.
He also intends to roll out the Pathways programme nationally, at a cost of £500m by 2008, to finance the changes.
But Hutton told the Commons work and pensions select committee on March 6 that using cognitive behaviour therapists to get people back to work left him little choice but to use private and voluntary partners to supply his wider reforms.
'There's undoubtedly a shortage of [CBT] capacity in the NHS,' he said. 'If we have to use private and voluntary sector partners to fulfil that role then bring it on – that's exactly what we want.'
Critics have questioned Hutton's widespread use of private and voluntary partners to fulfil key welfare functions.
But MPs view Hutton's plan as practical. Committee chair Terry Rooney told Public Finance: 'We have known about the shortage of CBTs for some time and it is clear that their expertise has to come from somewhere.
'We recently visited Derby to assess the city's successful Pathways programme… and discovered that they had used some of the additional cash to bring in private sector therapists. The effect was very positive, so we shouldn't be dogmatic about this plan.'
PFmar2006
