Patient-led appointment scheduling in NHS Talking Therapies

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Using patient-led appointment scheduling to improve cost-effectiveness, access, and patient satisfaction in NHS Talking Therapies services: A feasibility study.

• IRAS ID

  340071

• Contact name

  Robert Griffiths

• Contact email

  robert.griffiths-2@manchester.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  2 years, 1 months, 31 days

• Research summary

  NHS Talking Therapies support people with depression and anxiety. Some people find it difficult to access support from NHS Talking Therapies services. This includes people from ethnic minority groups, disabled people, and older people. Research also suggests that patients want more control over how they book appointments.

  Patient-led appointment scheduling (PLAS) is a way of arranging appointments that gives people more control over how they access talking therapies. PLAS lets people decide when and how often they attend appointments. They can also choose how many sessions to attend. There is evidence that patients prefer this approach, and it could save the NHS money.
  
  We think that therapy delivered using PLAS could be at least as helpful as therapy delivered using current practices. However, we think PLAS might be less expensive, more accessible, and preferred by patients. We would like to run a large study to see if this is the case. First, however, we want to conduct a smaller study to find out if it is possible to run this larger study.

  We will work with key stakeholders (patients and staff) to make sure the PLAS system is ready for further testing. We will then run a study called a clinical trial where patients will be placed at random in one of two groups. One group will receive talking therapy using PLAS. The other group will receive talking therapy with appointments arranged in the way these are usually delivered. We will collect information from patients about their problems with depression and anxiety. We will also ask people in both groups how satisfied they were with their experience of therapy and about their use of NHS services.

  The results will help us decide whether we should conduct a larger study that evaluates the effectiveness of PLAS in NHS Talking Therapies.

• REC name

  South Central - Oxford B Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  25/SC/0112

• Date of REC Opinion

  14 Apr 2025

• REC opinion

  Favourable Opinion