FAQs

Bradford District and Craven Talking Therapies service is not able to provide immediate support in crisis. If you find yourself in mental health crisis, or requiring urgent mental health support, please contact First Response crisis service.  First Response is available for people of all ages living in Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale or Craven who believe they are experiencing a mental health crisis.

First Response – Crisis Team:
Call: 0800 952 1181
24 hours a day, seven days a week

For further support, please visit our Urgent mental health support page.

NHS Talking Therapies, for anxiety and depression’ (formerly known as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies [IAPT]) is a national programme, developed to improve the delivery of, and access to, evidence-based, National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommended, psychological therapies for depression and anxiety disorders within the NHS.

For more information, please visit: NHS England » NHS Talking Therapies, for anxiety and depression

Talking therapies can help with common mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety and depression. Which therapy you may be offered depends on which one has been shown to be most helpful for your symptoms.  Examples of talking therapy are guided self-help, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Counselling for Depression.

To find out more, please visit: Types of talking therapy – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a short-term, evidence-based therapy, shown to be helpful in treating anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems. ‘Cognitive’ means our thoughts and ‘behaviour’ means the way we act.

CBT aims to help you explore and change how you think about your life, and free yourself from unhelpful patterns of behaviour. CBT will help you learn tools and techniques to reduce negative thinking patterns and respond differently, helping you to take control of your symptoms and feel better.

No, you do not have to visit your GP to engage with the service.  Your GP is able to make a referral for you, if you would prefer.

However, you can make a self-referral directly to the team by completing an online self-referral or by calling 01274 221234 (Monday – Friday – 09:00AM – 05:00PM) to speak to Bradford District and Craven Talking Therapies Administration team.

Your GP may be contacted when you have completed your assessment/treatment to let them know the outcome. This is so that they are aware of what help you are receiving to help inform your care and any future difficulties you may have.

If you have any concerns about information sharing, you can discuss these with your therapist.  Your GP may be contacted if we are worried about your safety or the safety of others around you.  Please see our Privacy Statement for further details.

No, the service is a free, NHS service.

We are only able to provide a service for people who are registered with a GP surgery in Bradford, Airedale, Wharfedale and Craven.

To find your local NHS Talking Therapies service, please visit: Find an NHS talking therapies services – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Our operational hours are Monday to Friday 09:00am – 05:00pm.

Please note that due to high demand, the availability of appointments may vary for individual treatment options and it will not always be possible to provide a specific time or day.

If you have completed psychological therapy within the last 3-6 months, we ask that you take the time to consolidate the learning you have taken from your session, prior to making a new referral.  If your last treatment session pre-dates this, and you are still experiencing difficulties, we encourage you to make a new referral.  For more information, please visit our self-referral page.

Typically, all initial assessment appointments over the phone; unless there is a specific reason that you need a face-to-face appointment. This can be discussed with our Administration team when your appointment is arranged.

For your treatment to work it is essential that you attend regular appointments. We understand that sometimes things can get in the way of being able to attend.  If you need to cancel an appointment, please contact us as soon as possible on 01274 221234 or talkingtherapiesadmin@bdct.nhs.uk

Regular attendance of your scheduled appointments is important for positive therapy outcomes and regular non-attendance, or cancellation, of scheduled appointments will unfortunately lead to discharge.

Due to the high demand for our service, and the impact that not attending has on your progress in treatment, you will be discharged from our service if you cancel, or do not attend, two consecutive (or 3 non-consecutive) scheduled appointments, within a course of treatment.

You will also automatically be discharged if you do not attend an assessment, or first therapy appointment, without letting us know in advance.  For further information, please see Bradford District Talking Therapies Cancellation, Non-attendance and Discharge Policy

Just let us know either when the referral is made or when we contact you to book your appointment and we can arrange for an interpreter to be present for your appointments.

All treatment is provided by trained IAPT therapists; either one to one, via online therapy (which we call SilverCloud) or in a group course/workshop format.  A range of practitioners work within the service. These include Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWPs) (Step 2) and High Intensity Therapists (Step 3).  Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners (PWP’s) are trained to deliver a wide range of interventions through guided self-help materials in the form of one-to-one work, courses/workshops or online CBT (SilverCloud).  Our High Intensity therapists work one-to-one with clients.

Our service is confidential and, as such, we are not able to speak with anyone else about your care (including booking or cancelling appointments) unless we have your prior recorded consent.

At assessment, the treatment options best suited to you will be discussed, but you won’t be able to request a certain type of treatment. You will be offered an evidenced based treatment, recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance.  This means that the treatment has been researched and proven to be effective for the problem you are experiencing.

All remote treatment requires a quiet, comfortable, and private space for appointments. It is important to have a space where you can engage in the session without any disruptions.  We cannot go ahead with appointments if you are driving, or in an inappropriate space and the appointment will be cancelled.  Video therapy requires working internet connection, access to Microsoft Teams, an email address and a computer or smart phone with audio speaker.

Your feedback is important to us and helps us to understand what we are doing well and also how to improve the service for others.  After assessment and upon completion of treatment, we will send you a SMS message, asking you to complete a patient experience questionnaire (PEQ). This provides us with valuable information about your experience of the service and we encourage you to complete the questionnaires.