Increasing access to psychological therapy on mental health inpatient wards (TULIPS: Talk Understand and Listen for Inpatient Settings)

Impact: Health and wellbeing, Policy

Public summary

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommend psychological therapies, like cognitive behavioural therapy, for severe mental health problems but people on mental health in patient wards are often not offered talking-based therapies as they are considered 'too unwell'. Therapy needs to be delivered differently in these settings and they are often not prioritised by mental health trusts.

Our researchers worked closely with service users/carers and inpatient staff to identify barriers and facilitators to delivering therapy in an in patient setting through a large qualitative study and then developed a psychological intervention (TULIPS (Talk Understand and Listen for Inpatient Settings)) designed to increase patient access on inpatient mental health wards by targeting those known barriers to their delivery.

In 2021, the model and research informing it contributed to new British Psychological Society and Association of Clinical Psychologist guidelines on the delivery of psychology within the Acute Adult Mental Health Care Pathway.

It is currently being evaluated in a large randomised controlled trial of psychological therapy delivered on acute wards to date (over 1,000 participants recruited from wards across the UK). Once complete, the model could be adopted as routine practice on acute mental health wards across the NHS.




Category of impactHealth and wellbeing, Policy
Impact levelEngagement

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