Somerset IAPT

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust has a forward-thinking primary care IAPT service covering a population of 965,424. In line with the growing demand for mental health services, they decided to explore available partners within the digital IAPT space. Our service, Xyla Digital Therapies, became their partner of choice in early 2019.

There were several areas where Somerset felt that a strategic partner would be able to help support their increasing demand:

  • Managing and reducing the waitlists
  • Improving patient choice
  • Extending core opening hours

Waitlist management

Thanks to our partnership with Mayden, the service implementation was seamless and efficient, thereby ensuring we were able to deploy within two weeks of being awarded the contract. As part of Acacium group, our sister company Pulse enabled the rapid workforce expansion in order to offer the level of support required.

“With Xyla’s help, our service has drastically reduced our waiting times overall during the last 12 months. We often struggle with recruitment issues, and Xyla is an effective resource to extend our clinical capacity. Their flexibility allows us to target specific pressure on our lists as it manifests.”

Somerset NHS Foundation Trust was initially attracted to our service due to the flexible pay-as-you-go model we offer and the seamless clinical database integration. Since implementation, though, our partnership has developed, and we now support them with assessments along with a more comprehensive therapeutic offering.

“Xyla has allowed us to adapt our use rapidly to our most immediate needs as we’ve gone along: from just HI CBT to counselling, Step 2 work and even assessments.”

Speaking to Marc McDonagh, Service Lead, Talking Therapies (Somerset IAPT service), an aspect of our service which has been most impactful is the availability of first language therapists. According to Marc, this has played an instrumental role in enabling them to meet patients’ needs they would otherwise struggle to engage with, owing to the lack of suitable interpreters in a rural county.

Another element, crucial for improving access to therapy, has been our provision of evening and weekend appointments, along with the ability to deliver remote work at Step 3. By working together, Somerset IAPT service was able to provide therapy to patients in more rural areas, thereby ensuring people got the help they needed.

Thanks to this robust partnership and the collaborative efforts, Somerset has seen a significant improvement to their waitlists and has a brilliant recovery of 62.5%.

“Xyla are more willing and able to manage risk; they don’t try to be selective on patient presentation or severity and have proved they can achieve good recovery regardless.”