BOLTON is the worst in Greater Manchester and second worst in the North West for improving access to therapists.

A combination of lack of staff and employee sickness has been blamed on NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) failing to meet its talking therapies targets between October and December last year.

The latest NHS England mental health data shows that nearly six in 10 CCGs have failed to meet the target for the proportion of people that should be accessing the service.

From October to December, 2016 the target was 3.95 per cent of people suffering common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, but Bolton only achieved 2.8 per cent.

Only Liverpool and Wirral did worse at 2.4 per cent. Over the year the target is to get 15.8 per cent of eligible mental health sufferers into therapy, with a view to giving talking therapy to 25 per cent of sufferers by 2021.

The data looks at therapies available through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme.

A spokesperson for Bolton CCG said they had made significant investment in IAPT services in 2014 to 2015 to improve access and recovery targets.

As a result, between September, 2014 and September, 2016 the access rate was achieved 80 per cent of the time.

They added: “Due to the combined effect of vacancies within a specialist workforce and sickness the CCG failed the target between October, 2016 to April, 2017 but these issues have now been rectified by the IAPT service provider and the CCG anticipates achieving the target from September.

“As part of the Bolton Locality Plan and the Transformation Implementation Fund, additional recurrent investment has been ring-fenced to achieve the national 19 per cent access target by 2018/19.

“Bolton CCG are fully committed to the parity of esteem agenda to ensure spending on mental health is more aligned with physical health and improved local rapid access to emotional wellbeing and mental health services is a key priority.”

The CCG reported that since July, 2016 it has exceeded national recovery rate targets and the 75 per cent in six weeks and 95 per cent in 18 weeks waiting time targets from referral to treatment since they were introduced in 2015/16.

The talking therapies increased access target is set to rise from 15.8 per cent to 25 per cent by the year 2021.

Sophie Corlett, director of external relations at mental health charity Mind, said it was unacceptable that nearly three in five CCGSs were missing targets when it comes to helping local people receive talking therapy.

She added: “Mental health services have been woefully underfunded for years. Thanks to anti-stigma campaigns and movements like Heads Together and Times to Change, there’s less of a taboo when it comes to mental health, but as more people come forward and seek help, it’s vital that quality timely services are in place to meet increasing demand.

“No matter where you live in the country, we want to see everyone access the help they need, when they need it.”