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NHS to offer 'marriage counselling'
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Couples who have hit a "rocky patch" will be offered counselling on the NHS if their relationship problems are causing depression, it has emerged.
The free advice will be available from April as part of the Government's talking therapies programme, IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies), which was set up to help people suffering from anxiety and depression get off sick pay and benefits and back to work.
The move, to be unveiled this week by Health Secretary Andy Burnham, will implement National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) guidance that recommends relationship therapy should be offered under the IAPT programme.
In a speech on Thursday to the New Savoy Partnership, a group of organisations aiming to improve access to psychological therapies, Mr Burnham will say: "Trouble at home can lead to depression and anxiety - sometimes even children can be caught up in the fallout.
"When couples hit a rocky patch, a bit of help and support can stop it spiralling out of control. Professional support can help people rebuild relationships or separate amicably - that is why I want couples therapy to be more widely available on the NHS."
But the plan drew criticism from patients and doctors' groups in the wake of recent decisions by Nice to reject life-extending drugs for cancer and treatment to reduce symptoms of dementia.
Nick James, professor of clinical oncology at the Cancer Research UK Institute for Cancer Studies, told The Sunday Telegraph: "I am horrified, in particular because of the way these decisions are taken without public debate.
"I think most people would say treatment for those who are sick with cancer should be top of our list, and I would really question whether these kinds of efforts to preserve marriages are a matter for the state."
Michael Summers, vice-president of the Patients Association, urged Nice and the Government to "get their priorities right." He said: "If we had the luxury of untold sums of money, maybe we would think about paying for couples' counselling.
"As things stand, people are still waiting for urgent treatment, being denied drugs for cancer and dementia, and it seems inappropriate at the very least to start using public money in this way."
