Beating the Blues

What is Beating the Blues

Beating the Blues has been proven to help people suffering with mild and moderate depression to get better and stay better and is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

It is a way of helping people to learn to cope with anxiety and depression and has been recommended for use in the NHS by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

Beating the Blues brings all the benefits of CBT directly to your patients by the use of computer and multi-media technology which means that you can access the treatment when and where you want. This type of therapy is referred to as Computerised CBT.

Independent research has shown that CCBT works for many people with depression and anxiety by teaching practical, lifelong skills to help them feel better and stay better.

This program was jointly designed and developed by Dr Judy Proudfoot and her team at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London and Ultrasis plc.

View a video tour of one of the sections in Beating the Blues that teaches you about pleasurable events.

NICE Guidance

On February 26th 2006 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published a technical appraisal recommending that Beating the Blues should be offered as a treatment option for people who have mild and moderate depression in both primary and secondary care. They made this recommendation following a review of all the evidence that was available from published research, reviews by professionals and information provided by organisations that had developed Computerised CBT programs.

Beating the Blues was the only treatment program recommended by NICE for the treatment of people with mild and moderate depression.

When NICE makes a recommendation it is binding on the NHS to make treatments available so that patients can have access to the best possible care. This normally needs to be done within 90 days of the recommendation being made.

Resources

• Computerised cognitive behaviour therapy for depression and anxiety - NICE Technology Appraisal 97

Stepped Care Approach to Treating Depression

In December 2004 NICE published guidance on the treatment of people with depression. The NICE clinical guideline on depression covers:

The care people with depression can expect to receive from their GP or other healthcare professionals, whether they receive treatment in or out of hospital.

The information they can expect to receive about their problem and its treatment

What they can expect from treatment, including psychological therapies, drug treatment and electroconvulsive therapy.

The kind of services that help people with depression, including your GP, specialist mental health services and hospital care.

This guidance indicated that CBT was the most evidence based approach to the treatment of Depression and that Computerised CBT was a beneficial a way of providing access to psychological therapies.

Beating the Blues is the only computerised CBT program recommended by NICE for mild and moderate depression.

Stepped Care Diagram

Step 5: Inpatient care, crisis teams	Risk to life, severe self-neglect	Medication, combined treatments, ECT
Step 4: Mental health specialists including crisis teams	Treatment-resistant, recurrent, atypical and psychotic depression, and those at significant risk	Medication, complex psychological interventions, combined treatments
Step 3: Primary care team, primary care mental health worker	Moderate or severe depression	Medication, psychological interventions, social support
Step 2: Primary care team, primary care mental health worker	Mild depression	Watchful waiting, guided self-help, computerised CBT, exercise, brief psychological interventions
Step 1: GP, practice nurse	Recognition	Assessment

Resources

• Computerised cognitive behaviour therapy for depression and anxiety - NICE Technology Appraisal 97
• What NICE means to you

• David Walter Primary Care Mental Health Worker As a service we like to be able to offer different therapies for different people and Beating the Blues really meets an unmet need at the moment for people who to come in and actually focus on picking up techniques and perhaps not having to speak to a therapist every session.
• Dr. Mark Allen GP The Maltings Surgery We've been surprised by how effective computerised CBT can be on its own, in a few cases people even prefer it to seeing a person.
• Simon Vearnals Psychologist Primary Care – Psychology services Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is probably the most research evidence based treatment in the world today
• Nicki Lidbetter Chief Officer Self Help Services CBT is very much about putting people at the centre of their own recovery and giving them if you like a tool kit to get them back in control of their lives.

Getting Patients access through the NHS

When the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends a treatment after a health technology assessment it is binding on the NHS to provide this within 90 days of the publication of the assessment. Patients should have been able to get Beating the Blues free of charge through the NHS from April 2007.

In fact in March 2007 the Secretary of State for Health announced that PCTs should make Beating the Blues available to any patient that needs it and that they could go and get it from their GP.

If you want to find out more please contact our team.