Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT)

In May 2017 LimeCulture was commissioned to develop a service specification for a talking therapies service for survivors of sexual violence.

This work was to build on work in the last ten years, where statutory partners have worked together to set up sexual assault referral services (SARS) across England. These services provide an appropriate environment for survivors to receive all care required, and to provide evidence in the immediate period after disclosing the incident(s). The services are comprehensive. However, they do not offer talking therapies for survivors who wish to access support in the period after the incident(s). It is expected that survivors would access such services within their own communities on referral from a GP.

Despite this expectation it is believed that a significant proportion of survivors do not access such services. This may be because they do not wish to disclose the matter to their GP, or because there is pressure on services, or because services specific to this need have not been commissioned.

The service specification developed by LimeCulture

• Described a talking therapies service which responds to the needs of survivors of sexual violence
• Described an all-age service, so that children and young people are provided with an appropriate service
• Proposed specific forms of therapy with rationale for selecting these
• Proposed the length and frequency of sessions for an individual survivor
• Proposed the quality standards which the service should aim to reach
• Proposed indicators against which the service can be assessed