Recently the UK Government announced an unprecedented, large-scale initiative for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) for depression and anxiety disorders. Prior to this development, the Department of Health established two pilot projects that aimed to collect valuable information to inform the national roll-out. Doncaster and Newham received additional funds to rapidly increase the availability of CBT-related interventions and to deploy them in new clinical services, operating on stepped-care principles, when appropriate. This article reports an evaluation of the new services (termed ‘demonstration sites’) during their first thirteen months of operation. A session-by-session outcome monitoring system achieved unusually high levels of pre to post-treatment data completeness. Large numbers of patients were treated, with low-intensity interventions (such as guided self-help) being particularly helpful for achieving high throughput. Clinical outcomes were broadly in line with expectation. 55–56% of patients who had attended at least twice (including the assessment interview) were classified as recovered when they left the services and 5% had improved their employment status. Treatment gains were largely maintained at 10 month follow-up. Opening the services to self-referral appeared to facilitate access for some groups that tend to be underrepresented in general practice referrals. Outcomes were comparable for the different ethnic groups who access the services. Issues for the further development of IAPT are discussed.

Combining low-intensity stepped care psychological treatment with a telephony-based collaborative care organizational system can deliver good clinical outcomes in routine practice.

Background Poor UK lung cancer survival rates may, in part, be due to late diagnosis. Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of a mixedmethod community-based social marketing intervention on lung cancer diagnoses. Methods A public awareness campaign in conjunction with brief intervention training in general practices was piloted in six localities with a high lung cancer incidence. End points were self-reported awareness of lung cancer symptoms; intention to seek healthcare; chest x-ray referral rates in primary care; secular trends in the incidence of lung cancer and stage at diagnosis, compared before and after the intervention. Results 21% (128/600) (95% CI 18% to 25%) of the targeted population recalled something about the campaign. Compared with a responder in the control area, the odds of a responder in the intervention area saying that they would visit their general practitioner and request a chest x-ray for a cough was 1.97 times (95% CI 1.18 to 3.31, p¼0.01). Primary care chest x-ray referral rates increased by 20% in the targeted practices in the year following the intervention compared with a 2% fall in the control practices. The difference was highly significant, with an incidence rate ratio of 1.22 (95% CI 1.12 to 1.33, p¼0.001). There was a 27% increase in lung cancer diagnoses in the intervention area compared with a fall in the control area. The incidence rate ratio was 1.42 (95% CI 0.83 to 2.44 p¼0.199). Conclusion This is encouraging early evidence that an awareness and early recognition initiative may facilitate lung cancer diagnosis.

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This process, and the development of a risk framework, was useful in identifying a prioritized work programme to improve standards of public health practice in this department. This model can also be used not only for planning risk management activities, continual identification and assessment of risks but also to provide inspiration for other clinical governance activities including public health audit.