The Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Data Set is a patient level, output based, secondary uses data set which aims to deliver robust, comprehensive, nationally consistent, and comparable information for people accessing NHS funded IAPT services located in England.

This national data set has been developed with the NHS England and the IAPT Programme to support service delivery, inform clinical decision-making and encourage improved access to talking therapies for people with common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety disorders.

As a secondary uses data set it re-uses clinical and operational data for purposes other than direct patient care, for example: commissioning, service improvement and service design. It defines the data items, definitions, and associated value sets to be extracted or derived from local information systems. These national definitions allow providers to extract data from their local systems in a consistent manner, which supports national and local reporting to be undertaken.

About this change

The changes included in this release relate to new government policy initiatives, resolution of issues within the current data collection, and inclusion of other key stakeholder requirements as follows:

• new data items to capture gender, to align with DCB0011 Mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) Version 5.0
• addition of a Medical History table - IDS601 Medical History (Previous Diagnosis) to capture medical history information
• addition of an Accommodation status table - IDS003 Accommodation Status to capture the type of accommodation that is the patient’s main or permanent residence
• minor changes to the IDS004 Employment Status and IDS201 Care Contact tables to ensure the Employment Advisors in the IAPT programme remains ‘fit for purpose’
• changes to the mandation status of two data items from Required to Mandatory:
  • ‘Person Birth Date’ in the IDS001 Master Patient Index table
  • ‘Employment Status Recorded Date’ in the IDS004 Employment Status table
  • deletion of data items that are no longer required
  • minor maintenance changes to respond to issues raised by, for example, the NHS Data Model and Dictionary Service.

System Conformance

From 1 January 2022, IAPT systems must be capable of capturing the information as defined in the Technical Output Specification (available on the NHS Digital IAPT web pages) for local use.

From 1 February 2022, IAPT systems must be able to extract data recorded in local systems to enable IAPT submissions in accordance with this standard. Health and Care Organisations.

From 1 January 2022 providers of NHS funded IAPT services must be able to collect the information as defined in the Technical Output Specification for local use.

From 1 February 2022, providers of NHS funded IAPT services must commence IAPT submissions in accordance with this standard.