Change of date - The New Savoy Partnership 8th Annual Conference and Exhibition: Psychological Therapies in the NHS

The New Savoy Partnership have changed the date of this year's conference from November 2014 to February 11th and 12th, 2015.

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Jeremy Clarke CBE explains the reasons behind changing the date:

"First, earlier this month representatives from each of the main political parties attended a parliamentary event where Lord Layard set out the case for a doubling of the current investment in IAPT. He is calling for a commitment to doubling the access targets for IAPT in all the party manifestoes for the next election. Alistair Campbell also spoke saying he wanted psychological therapies to "become a political issue", meaning that he sees this in terms of government priorities and what the different parties really value when it comes to difficult spending decisions. By moving the event closer to the next general election we intend to use this year's conference to stage a debate between the main parties on exactly what their various manifesto commitments will mean for the next government. Mental wellbeing has suffered under the combined impact of health and welfare cuts and the We Need to Talk Coalition, representing the talking therapies sector, will be announcing their own campaign priorities and making clear that empty manifesto promises will not now be good enough.

Second, we are delighted to be able to announce that this year's event will feature several leading scientists in psychological therapies from the USA. In this update I am pleased to give you details of our keynote speaker to start day one, Professor Alan Kazdin from Yale University, who is a Past President of the American Psychological Association and is Founding Editor of Clinical Psychological Science. Professor Kazdin is recognised world-wide for his rigorous approach to clinical science as well as the innovative therapeutic models he has developed for parents and children. He was delighted to accept our invitation as his current area of interest is in changing clinical psychology in order to find new evidence-based models that can genuinely reduce the burden of disease. The inter-disciplinary approach that we have taken in scaling up provision in the UK, which is still an evolving project, is something he is very interested in finding out more about. Professor Kazdin will share with us his thoughts on the direction of psychological therapies in the USA and more globally."