PPN NW Newsletter
Friday 13th June 2025
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Welcome to the latest edition of the Psychological Professions Network North West newsletter. We aim to bring you the latest updates about our work to join up psychological professionals, associated stakeholders, carers and experts by experience in the region.
Calling all Counsellors: Why join the North West Counselling Community of Practice? A message from Co-Chair, Priya Patel
I am Priya, a team manager for Oldham Talking Therapies.
I have 15 years of experience as a counsellor across private practice, the third sector and now for the NHS in Talking Therapies. My Counselling journey has been rich, varied and at times challenging. These experiences have not only shaped my professional path but also sparked a desire to ensure counsellors have a strong voice within the profession.
That is why I have joined the NW Counselling Community of Practice (CoP): I want it to be a space where we can come together to support, inspire and advocate for one another within the NHS psychological professions with the support of the PPN.
Why Join?
This community is for you and your voice matters. The strength of this group lies in our diversity. The more voices we have, the more representative and powerful our community becomes. We invite you all to join us by clicking the link here.
Be heard - Shape the group to reflect the needs and aspirations of NHS counsellors.
Be supported - Share and gain knowledge, insights, challenges in a safe supportive space.
Be Connected with peers across the Northwest and build a meaningful and diverse network.
Date for your diary: 10th July 2025 13:00 - 14:30
We are kicking off with a Schwartz Round – a reflective space to share and listen. The topic will be ‘The day I made a difference’ and all Counselling COP members will automatically get an invite.
If you would like to be a speaker at this event to reflect on a day you made a difference then please register your interest by emailing england.ppn.northwest@nhs.net
Be part of the CoP by joining it. Together we thrive.
Upcoming PPN events in June and July
The Changing Landscape of our Knowledge & Medication – Physical Health Community of Practice Event
Thursday 17th June, 11:00 – 12:00 (remote)
To join the community of practice and find out more about this and future events click here.
Psychological Practitioner Community of Practice Event
Friday 20th June
The Psychological Practitioner Community of Practice Event is now fully booked – with 60+ psychological practitioners signed up!
To join the community of practice and find out more about this and future events click here.
Anti-Racism Community of Practice Meeting
Monday 23rd June, 11:00 – 12:00
This CoP looks to create a collective momentum and shared purpose centred on the 7 Anti-Racism Principles cited in Darzi Review (2024) and developed by the NHS Race & Health Observatory. This meeting with focus on signing off the workstreams for the CoP this year.
To join the community of practice and find out more about this and future events click here.
Counselling Schwartz Round – online
Thursday 10th July, 13:00 – 14:30
The Counselling Community of Practice is organising a Schwartz Round, open to members the Counselling Community of Practice.
The theme will be The Day I Made a Difference
To join the community of practice and find out more about this and future events click here.
Urgent and Emergency Care Plan 2025/26
The urgent and emergency care plan for 2025/26 has been released.
The aims of this include:
To reduce the number of patients who remain in an emergency department for over 24 hours while awaiting a mental health admission. This will provide faster care for thousands of people in crisis every month
To increase the number of patients receiving urgent care in primary, community and mental health settings, including the number of people seen by Urgent Community Response teams and cared for in virtual wards
Allocating funding to support mental health crisis assessment centres and additional mental health inpatient capacity to reduce the number of mental health patients having to seek treatment in emergency departments
Government Consultation on Requests for Victim Information Code of Practice
The government is seeking views on a draft Request for Victim Information Code of Practice which, once in force, will accompany new duties relating to third party material requests, where "counselling" notes are requested as part of legal investigations or proceedings.
This consultation also seeks views on a definition of "counselling services" in the context of these duties.
The consultation closes on 1st July 2025.
You can find more information on this here.
Please do respond individually or on behalf of your organisation if appropriate.
Psychosis and PTSD: Can trauma-focused CBT therapy help? Research Webinar Friday 13th June 12:00 – 13:30
The Stress and Trauma Recovery (STAR) study team held end of project online event today (Friday 13th June) bringing together five NHS Trusts who took part in the trial.
The STAR trial was for people who have been through stressful or traumatic events that have had a lasting impact on them and have problems such as hearing, seeing or feeling things that others can’t, or who have worries about harm or persecution. It looked at a type of therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychosis (TF-CBTp) and compared it to standard treatment.
Exploring alternatives to inpatient admission - Research Webinar, Tuesday 10th June 19:00 – 20:00
Researchers from Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) have partnered with service users, carers, families and community groups to explore an alternative approach to inpatient psychiatric admission, known as the ‘Soteria’ approach – for people experiencing extreme psychological states, often referred to as psychosis or mania.
Marking the start of the project, the research team held a webinar and Q&A session earlier this week
To find out more and register your interest you can sign up here.
Infected Blood Psychological Service open to referrals
All people infected and affected by the contaminated blood scandal in England can now access bespoke psychological support through the Infected Blood Psychological Service (IBPS).
Infected and affected people can self-refer by calling 0300 131 0444. Trained personnel are available from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. Callers will need to provide basic contact details and will be connected with the most appropriate local IBPS centre. There are 16 centres around the country.
Once someone has been assessed by the IBPS, if support is required, a psychological review will be undertaken and treatment provided by specialist clinicians who have expertise in issues facing those infected or affected by the contaminated blood scandal. A full range of services offered by the IBPS can be found on a new IBPS website. Future additions to the service will include access to virtual peer support forums and signposting to additional support for benefits, housing services, employment and financial advice.
Learning Disability Week
Learning Disability Week takes place annually during the third week of June.
In 2025 Learning Disability Week starts on Monday 16 June.
The theme this year is "Do you see me?" which is all about people with a learning disability being seen, heard and valued.
You can find out more about Learning Disability Week on the Mencap website here.
Depression link to physical pain years later
Middle-aged and older adults who experience pain are more likely to have had worsening symptoms of depression up to eight years before the pain began, according to a new study.
You can read more about this study here.
Fully Funded and Salary Supported NHS Talking Therapies High Intensity Psychotherapeutic Counselling Training Programmes - available for NHS Talking Therapies services for September 2025
NHS England are looking for services interested in hosting trainees.
In September 2022, NHS England (formerly Health Education England) commissioned three pilot programmes to train high intensity psychotherapeutic counsellors in specific NHS Talking Therapies modalities, to work in NHS Talking Therapies services. These 3-year programmes received tuition and salary support funding and led to trainees completing foundation level training alongside NHS Talking Therapies specific modality training in Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT), Person Centred Experiential Counselling for Depression (PCE-CfD) or Couples Therapy for Depression (CtfD).
Building on the success of these programmes, NHS England are pleased to be able to offer further opportunities for new cohorts starting in September 2025, again services will receive 100% salary support across the 3-years of the programmes alongside the training being fully funded. We are in need of NHS Talking Therapies services who can take on these trainees, in particular for the following modalities:
Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT)
Couples Therapy for Depression (CtfD)
Further details on these programmes are available in the attached details and curriculum.
If your Service is interested in please contact matthew.oates4@nhs.net at the earliest
Just to note, NHSE are just looking for NHS Talking Therapies services interested in hosting trainees currently, it is expected that the roles themselves be advertised via NHS Jobs shortly.
NHS Talking Therapies Impact Evaluation
Earlier this year the NHS England Behavioural Science Unit carried out research asking NHS Talking Therapies practitioners about their thoughts on factors that contribute to patient adherence to Talking Therapies treatment for anxiety and depression.
Expressions of interest via newsletters and the FutureNHS platform were sought with 200 respondents.
These responses were collated into a research report with recommendations, which was shared with members of the NHS England national mental health team.
We are now working together with the Strategy Unit to explore the next phase in this research: undertaking an impact evaluation of new interventions to improve adherence to NHS Talking Therapies.
We are looking to speak to NHS Talking Therapies providers who have implemented something new in the last three years that is likely to have improved patient engagement and therefore increased adherence.
If you are interested in speaking to us, we are looking to collect the following details:
• A description of your intervention (what you did)
• The implementation date (when you did it)
• Any specific criteria you applied (e.g. targeting patient factors such as age or location)
This analysis will help us identify interventions that improved adherence and could therefore be promoted to other providers. It will compare each intervention provider with a similar provider based on a set of matching variables, such as deprivation, depression prevalence and staffing levels.
We will compare the change in patient outcomes and trends after the intervention with the change in the comparison provider. The level of change will be tested for statistical significance to identify interventions that can be assumed to have ‘caused’ the improvement. Any results will be shared with the providers involved.
If you are interested in being involved in this evaluation please contact Mike Woodall, Impact Evaluation Lead at the Strategy Unit at m.woodall@nhs.net before the end of June.
Service Manager - Mental Health Matters
About the role
NHS Sefton Talking Therapies provides Talking Therapies services to the communities of South Sefton and Southport & Formby on behalf of the NHS.
Based primarily in Bootle and Southport, practitioners deliver a range of therapies up to and including Step 4 interventions.
The role of Service Manager provides strategic operational leadership of the service and is jointly responsible with the Clinical Lead in the planning, development and delivery of a high quality, responsive and accessible NHS Talking Therapies service.
Psychologically Informed…What’s Up Doc?: Willpower, habits…change is hard
Welcome to this week’s Psychologically informed, a space where PPN NW members can share something psychologically related that stirred them in some ways.
This week’s Gita Bhutani, Co-chair of the Psychological Professions Network North West talk about BBC podcast ‘What’s Up Docs?’
Recently I listened to an episode of the BBC podcast ‘What’s Up Docs?’, presented by identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken both medical doctors who have presented multiple programmes in different formats over the years.
It was interesting to hear their perspectives from one (Xand) saying ‘if I had a bit more willpower…’ then I could do more of what I want and less of what I shouldn’t do. The other (Chris) said they started from the position that willpower as a concept has no moral or scientific or political or economic validity and that they hated it.
They had a conversation with a counselling psychologist (Kimberley Wilson). This led to a recognition that willpower is much more multi-dimensional including personality traits, context, physical traits etc. Also, that we have habits because they are less effortful (whether they are good for us or not) and changing them requires more energy.
Suggestions included needing o recognise that we are not always at our best selves when we make a plan and work out how we’re going to deal with that. Distress tolerance (the capacity to tolerate discomfort/emotional distress in a situation) was identified as a potentially helpful way of thinking about how we may try to talk ourselves out of doing the thing(s) we had planned.
Then I came across some other research reviewing how long it can take to make a habit stick. The BPS research digest summarised the research citing that it can take 55-65 days to form a habit. However, this was longer for other more challenging activities (healthy eating, stretching).
Both the article and the podcast said that making plans to include contingencies and making the change routine and monitoring our behaviour all contributes to making the change stick. Breaking it down this way does take out the judgemental perspective which can be much more helpful to our wellbeing. So back to my good intentions….
What's Up Docs? - How important is willpower? - BBC Sounds
How to make a habit stick | BPS
Singh, B., Murphy, A., Maher, C., & Smith, A. E. (2024). Time to Form a Habit: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Health Behaviour Habit Formation and Its Determinants. Healthcare, 12(23), 2488. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12232488
If you would like to share something ‘Psychologically Informed’ please send us your summary in up to 300 words to england.ppn.northwest@nhs.net
Are you a member of one of our Communities of Practice?
By receiving this email you are a confirmed member of the PPN NW; however, have you considered joining one of our Communities of Practice (CoP)? Please see links below for information on how to join one of our CoPs:
PPN NW Mailing List Review
The Psychological Professions Network depends on the engagement of its members. To do this we need to ensure we have an accurate and up to date register and mailing list to enable us to keep you regularly updated with events, policy changes, projects and more.
Due to an error on our website registration form, a number of people who have created PPN NW accounts have automatically been opted out of communications and, therefore, are not receiving professional updates or event opportunities – effectively negating any benefit of being a member! We are therefore in the process of opting all of these members back into communications. Please do email us if you wish to remain opted out of communications.
What are we asking you to do?
Being a member of our PPN NW Mailing List allows us to invite you to bespoke Community of Practice events and workshops, receive our newsletter.
We will not share your information with any third parties or send you any promotional emails that are not connected to delivering psychological health and wellbeing within an NHS-commission space.
Please email the PPN NW at england.ppn.northwest@nhs.net if you wish to be removed from the PPN NW Mailing List.
You can update your own details, for both Membership and Communications Preferences, at any time by visiting the website here, this includes your profile with your most recent job title, professional role, banding and ICB etc.
Share Your News!
Please email the PPN-NW team at england.ppn.northwest@nhs.net if you have an update from your work or local network that you would like featured in one of our upcoming newsletters. We want to boost important events and developments from around our region, so let us know what’s going on where you are!
Interested in joining the PPN?
Anyone can join the Psychological Professions Network! Whether you are a member of one of the psychological professions, another professional of any discipline, an aspiring psychological professional, or a member of the public, you can sign up and join us for free.
