Professionals

Refer someone

Talking Change is for everyone aged sixteen or over, who live in Portsmouth and are registered with a GP in the city.

If you are a health or social care professional wishing to make an online referral on behalf of someone, please use this secure assisted form.

Need urgent help?

Talking Change is not an emergency mental health service for people in crisis. Support is available from specialist services if they need urgent help. Once the crisis has passed, we hope they will consider therapy with us.

Under the age of 16?

Please contact their GP to discuss local services for children and young people. Once they’re aged sixteen or over they are welcome to self-refer to Talking Change.

Out of area?

If they live or are registered with a GP outside of Portsmouth, you can find their local service.

Information for stakeholders

Talking Change is the primary care mental health service for Portsmouth, provided by Solent NHS Trust.

We are part of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, and regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

We’re a team of therapists and researchers who specialise in the understanding and treatment of common mental health difficulties.

We offer a wide range of talking therapies recommended by the National Institute for Health & Care Excellence (NICE). Alongside therapy our Employment Team can help our service users find employment or training, and support them with workplace adjustments or disputes.

Therapy can be provided one-to-one, in a group, over the phone, via video call or online. We can see our service users in local health clinics across Portsmouth. All of our clinics are wheelchair friendly. If needed, we can provide an interpreter and easy read information.

We contact our service users within 5 working days of receiving their referral to book an assessment. We aim to provide an assessment within 28 days, though it usually takes place within 14 days. We then aim for our service users to start therapy (or an additional assessment, if required) within a further 28 days.

We are privileged to partner with local organisations, and with services across health and social care. Our partnerships bring together a range of experience and expertise, to help improve accessibility, and to provide our service users with the care and support they need. Read more about our partnerships.

We believe that patient and public involvement provides better care. Our ‘Count Me In’ initiative means that if there is a research study or service improvement project we think our service users might be interested in, we will contact them to see if they would like to be involved. Our research has led to peer-reviewed publications. Read more about our research.

Media reporting can have a positive influence on public attitudes towards mental health. We support all media enquiries, providing spokespeople and a press kit.

We are proud to be one of the best performing IAPT services in the country. Here are our key performance statistics for the last financial year:

N.B. Recovery is defined as a score of ≤9 on the PHQ-9 and ≤ 7 on the GAD-7 after a score above either these cut-offs at pre-treatment. Patient satisfaction is declared if a patient selects either ‘completely satisfied’ or ‘mostly satisfied’ on their end of treatment feedback questionnaire.

Difficulties we treat

• Stress

• Depression

• Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)

• Illness anxiety disorder

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)

• Social anxiety disorder

• Specific phobias

• Panic disorder

• Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD)

• Loss or bereavement

• Expressing anger

• Problems in relationships

Difficulties we don’t treat

• Bipolar disorder

• Personality disorders

• Psychotic disorders

• Eating disorders

• People who are suicidal, self-harming or unable to maintain their safety

Talking therapies we offer

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

• Counselling

• Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

• Compassion-focused Therapy (CFT)

• Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)

• Eye Movement Desensitisation& Reprocessing (EMDR)

• Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET)

• Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)

• Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT)

• Couples Therapy

Information for your service users

If you would like some brief information about us to publish on your website or for hard-copy print, we have put together a press kit that includes our logo. Please click here to download our press kit.