Newcastle Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies (CBT) Centre – Patient Information Leaflet

We hope this booklet will provide you with information that you will find useful when attending the Newcastle Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Centre (Newcastle CBT Centre). If you are not sure about anything in this leaflet, please ask a member of staff.

The Newcastle CBT Centre provides an expert Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) consultation service to people in the Northern region of England.

We usually work with people who have struggled to benefit from CBT provided at other locations or have complex needs that may not be met in other services. This is primarily done on a one-to-one basis. We also offer supplementary group work which may be appropriate for different people at different times in their therapy.

We adapt the standard CBT approach where required to meet the needs of our patients.

CBT is a type of psychotherapy used for a range of emotional problems and psychological disorders. CBT helps you understand how your thinking, emotions/feelings/moods, body sensations and behaviours (actions) are linked. For instance, you may have begun to think about things in unhelpful ways, be preoccupied with dwelling on the past or worrying a lot about the future. You may be feeling anxious or down a lot, avoiding or give up on things that once mattered to you. By first helping you understand these patterns in thinking and behaviour, CBT then aims to help you to change unhelpful thinking or actions which may contribute to your distress. CBT is classed as a ‘talking therapy’, but for these reasons, we think of it more as a ‘doing therapy’.

CBT has been shown to be an effective treatment for many anxiety-based and mood related problems including:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Panic
• Persistent physical symptoms accompanied by anxiety or depression
• Trauma
• Eating problems
• Relationship problems
• Sleeping difficulties

You and your therapist will work together as a team to understand your difficulties and discover ways of overcoming them. CBT is an active therapy. This means that you will be expected to work on your difficulties outside the therapy sessions. This can involve keeping written records, trying out new methods of coping, doing some reading and so on. This work will be planned with you to make sure that it is relevant to you, your difficulties, and your circumstances.

In addition to being CBT specialists, many of our team are also trained in other treatment approaches, such as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), or Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT). These approaches are really complementary to CBT and can support the tailoring of treatment to individual needs. We can provide you with more information about these treatments if required.

As per NHS standards, it is our aim to arrange an assessment appointment within four weeks of receiving your referral. The assessment usually takes place over one or two sessions. Its aims are to get as clear as we can about your difficulties and needs, and to consider what previous treatments you have had.

The therapist will want to know enough about your problems to decide whether CBT is a suitable way forward. The assessment is an opportunity for you to ask questions about CBT or about the service.

If you and the therapist decide that CBT is a suitable treatment for your problems, the different treatment options will be discussed with you. It is important to bear in mind that you will have a further wait for treatment after this assessment.

• Your therapist will discuss the findings from your assessment with other members of the CBT team. We will contact you by phone or letter once we have discussed your assessment.
• We will share with you a draft version of the assessment summary letter, explaining what was discussed and the team’s decision about next steps.
• You will be invited to ‘co-produce’ the letter, meaning you will be able to comment on it and/or make changes, before it is finalised.
• It will then be sent to you, your GP, and anyone else you have identified as involved in your care.
• If the team decide CBT is not the right choice for you at this time, the therapist will write back to the clinician who referred you. You can then discuss further treatment options with that clinician or your GP.
• Sometimes patients disagree with the conclusion of the therapy team. Particularly if the team believes that therapy at the CBT Centre is not the best way forward at this time. The reasons will be made clear in the summary letter, but you can ask for further explanation if you feel it would be helpful.

An important advantage of CBT is that it is a shorter-term therapy compared with some other approaches. If it is decided that CBT could be useful, you and your therapist will agree an initial course of around 10 sessions at your first treatment appointment. At which point you would review how the work is going at that stage. You and your therapist will review progress informally each session, and more formally around every 10 sessions to ensure therapy is on track and helpful. Additional sessions can be offered if agreed they would be helpful.

Each individual session lasts approximately one hour and you will be asked to attend weekly or fortnightly. Some individual and group sessions may be longer.

The therapies we offer are structured and at the start of your therapy we will help you to set practical goals. At the beginning of a session, you will work with your therapist to decide upon an agenda for that session, i.e. what you want to discuss and what kind of outcomes you would like. Your therapist will often help you work out what you will do between sessions once you have reached those outcomes.

Quality assurance
The Newcastle CBT Centre is a specialist service with expert practitioners in CBT. We routinely monitor and evaluate the efficiency and quality of our services in an effort to achieve excellence in what we do. Therefore, your feedback is important to us. In addition to this, we strive to keep up to date with current research in order to provide evidence-based practice.

In 2011 we looked at outcomes for people who had been through our service. We found that 57% of the people we saw met all their goals for therapy, and that the effect of the package of care they received for their symptoms was roughly equivalent to the effect of medication under clinical trial conditions.

Whilst 43% don’t reach all their goals, many will have reached some of their goals. Satisfaction surveys have shown that our patients find our staff friendly, pleasant, and respectful and the therapists caring, understanding and professional.

Qualifications and training of therapists
Our therapists come from a variety of different training backgrounds. All therapists will have at least their professional training (i.e. as a Clinical Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Nurse, etc) as well as a significant degree of postgraduate training in CBT. They will also have several years of supervised practice and specialist experience in certain areas of mental health practice such as:

• mood disorders
• anxiety disorders
• OCD
• trauma
• eating disorders

Therapists also undertake Continued Professional Development (CPD) to ensure their relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes and kept up to date. Our therapists are all eligible for accreditation with the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) which ensures standards of practice of CBT in the UK. Depending on their core professional training and registration, some therapists are also regulated by professional bodies such as the Health Care Professionals Council (HCPC), the General Medical Council (GMC) and the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Confidentiality boundaries
As part of our assessment process, and to help us plan your care, whilst in treatment, we need to gather information. Information gathered and held about you and your care is subject to the Data Protection Act (2018) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018). This is a privacy and security law that relates to how personal information is collected, stored and used, and the rights you have in relation to information held about you. Further information can be found at ico.org.uk

It is sometimes necessary to share information about you with other people involved in your care and appropriate colleagues within this team. This is to ensure that we can make the most beneficial decisions about your care. At the point of assessment, and again if you begin treatment with us, you will be asked to consent to this. Under normal circumstances we will not share information about you without your consent.

Another way in which your case will, at times, be discussed is with appropriate colleagues within the team for the purpose of supervision. All our therapists access regular supervision. This is a space for them to reflect on their work to ensure high professional standards are continually being met. Again, we will ask your consent for this.

Any information gathered will be kept in your Health Record (written or computerised). We have a duty to keep information about you private and confidential. As such, your Health Record will be stored safely and securely. Also, we will only seek or share information that will be relevant to your assessment and helpful in planning your care. Where we seek or share information, those colleagues will be bound by the same rules of confidentiality.

Exception to the rule
There are certain circumstances when it does become necessary to share information without your consent, in accordance with Trust policy, common law obligations and the Data Protection Act (2018) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2018). Where there is a concern that you, a child or young person or other person are at risk of harm we are legally bound to share this with other appropriate professionals. This can be done without your consent. If possible, however, we would discuss this with you first. The information shared will be kept to the minimum necessary and will be handled under the terms of the NHS Confidentiality Code of Practice.

High standards of professional conduct
All our therapists act according to professional codes of conduct. You should be assured that your therapist will always be sensitive, respectful and non-judgemental.

The next section describes how our service operates and what will be required from you during therapy. It is important that you read this carefully so that you are fully informed about what to expect.

Preparing for therapy
At assessment we often find that, along with the main problems a person is seeking CBT for, there may be other difficulties that could benefit from being addressed before starting therapy. We call these ‘preparatory needs’, as they affect how ready or prepared for change a person may be. Preparatory needs may be linked to psychological issues like managing strong emotions, or alcohol or substance problems. They may relate to social challenges such as transport or childcare to attend therapy, issues around housing, finances, immigration, isolation or major relationship difficulties. Or they may relate to a person’s physical health or medications. We may signpost you to other services and agencies to try to support you to address these needs. This will allow you to focus on change regarding your psychological and emotional problems when therapy begins.

Questionnaires
During the course of your therapy, you will be asked to complete a number of short questionnaires. This is important in helping you and your therapist track your progress during the course of therapy. If you are having trouble completing the questionnaires, then please discuss this with your therapist.

Between session work
There are 168 hours in a week, and usually only one is spent in therapy. CBT involves a certain amount of experimentation and exploration. Evidence has shown that those who work on therapy assignments between sessions get the most from the process. Between session tasks help you build upon what you learn in therapy sessions and practice the techniques outside of the therapy room. Assignments will vary according to your goals for therapy, the agenda items covered in a session and the stage of therapy you are at. A variety of ideas and techniques will be explored until an effective one is found which works best for you.

Recording/monitoring of sessions
Recorded sessions (audio or video) are sometimes used by clients and therapists alike as they are a helpful way of revisiting the many issues that arise during a session. They are sometimes used by your therapist within their supervision to ensure that your therapist’s practice is monitored and to ensure our high standards of care.

Audio recordings may sometimes be used for homework tasks. The reasons for this will be explained to you and you will be asked to consent to this. You will be asked by your therapist to sign a consent document that outlines the purpose of recording, how it will be stored and for how long, and how it will be used (e.g. to reflect on in supervision). As with your Health Record, any recording made will be stored securely in accordance with the Data Protection Act (2018) and GDPR. Also, please be aware that you are entitled to request a copy of these recordings. You may withdraw your consent at any point.

Your treatment is not affected if you do not consent to being recorded.

If you need to cancel an appointment, you must give at least 24 hours notice where possible. This is so that your therapist can arrange to see another patient in that time, and to allow us to arrange a further appointment for you. Please see contact details at the end of this leaflet.

If you do not inform us of a cancellation after two occasions, then you may be discharged from the service and will need to be re-referred (if you wish to continue with CBT).

If you would like an interpreter, this can be arranged prior to your appointment.

Newcastle Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Centre is based in Benfield House, Walkergate Park, Newcastle. There is good public transport and car parking in the area.

For public transport information contact Traveline
Tel: 0871 200 22 33
Website:

Car parking is available at Walkergate Park Hospital. Charges apply, which can be paid in coins or using apps such as RingGo. There are two disabled parking bays. Disabled visitors should contact centre staff for advice regarding access.

If you want to make a comment, suggestion, compliment or complaint you can:

• talk to the people directly involved in your care
• ask a member of staff for a feedback form, or complete a form on the Trust website
• telephone the Complaints Department Tel: 0191 245 6672
• email [email protected]

 
We are always looking at ways to improve services. Your feedback allows us to monitor the quality of our services and act upon issues that you bring to our attention. You can provide feedback in the following ways:

• the quickest way for you to do this is to complete our short online survey at www.cntw.nhs.uk/yourvoice

Please use the code SPYT

• complete a Your Voice survey, available on wards, reception areas or from staff
• other options for sharing your feedback and experience www.cntw.nhs.uk/yourfeedback

 
Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS)
PALS provide confidential advice and support, helping you to sort out any concerns that you may have about any aspect of your or your loved ones care.

We act independently when handling patient and family concerns, liaising with staff, managers and, where appropriate, relevant organisations, to negotiate prompt solutions. If necessary, we can also refer patients and families to specific local or national-based support agencies.

North of Tyne
Tel: 0800 032 0202
Email: [email protected]
Post: FREEPOST PALS

9am – 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday
An answerphone is available at all times for you to leave a message. A member of the PALS team will aim to return your call as soon as possible.

Your local GP surgery should be able to provide self-help or information leaflets about CBT. Please contact us if you would like a list of related reading materials or if you would like us to send you any further information. In the meantime, if you have access to the internet, here are some useful websites:

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust www.cntw.nhs.uk
Self help guides, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust www.cntw.nhs.uk/selfhelp
British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapists www.BABCP.com
Royal College of Psychiatrists www.rcpsych.ac.uk
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence – www.nice.org.uk
Information on PTSD and its treatments – www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng116
Mind factsheets www.mind.org.uk
Care Opinion www.careopinion.org.uk/

• Recovery College Collective (Re-Co-Co)
1 Carliol Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6UF
www.recoverycoco.com
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0191 261 0948

• OCD Support Group
www.ocdaction.org.uk/
Helpline: 0300 636 5478

• If you need urgent help with your mental health or learning disability, you can get in touch with the Trust’s Crisis team or Initial Response services
– Gateshead and Newcastle
Tel: 0191 814 8899 or Freephone 0800 652 2863
For Deaf service users please text 07919 228 548 and a member of the team will respond as soon as possible.
– South Tyneside and Sunderland
Tel: 0303 123 1145 or freephone 0800 652 2867
For Deaf service users please text 07889 036 280 and a member of the team will respond as soon as possible.
– North Tyneside and Northumberland
Tel: 0303 123 1146 or freephone 0800 652 2861
For Deaf service users please text 07887 625 277 and a member of the team will respond as soon as possible.
– Cumbria
Tel: 0300 123 9015 or freephone 0800 652 2865
• MIND infoline 0300 123 3393 (9am-6pm, Monday to Friday)
Email: [email protected]
• SANEline 0300 304 7000 (4pm-10pm, every day) www.sane.org.uk

• Rethink Mental illness Advice and Information Line
Freephone: 0808 801 0525 (9.30am-4pm, Monday to Friday except bank holidays)
www.rethink.org

We are aware that coming for therapy can be a daunting and confusing experience for some people. Therefore, if you have any questions at all about this leaflet or about anything to do with the service, the NHS, mental health issues, or your therapy, then please use this leaflet to write them down.

You can then bring this leaflet with you to your appointment and discuss any queries with your therapist. If there is anything you would like to know beforehand then please contact the Centre on
0191 287 6100 and we will do our best to help.

Specialist Centre for Psychological Therapies
Newcastle Cognitive and Behavioural Therapies Centre
Benfield House, Walkergate Park, Benfield Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 4PF
Telephone: 0191 287 6100– Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, or you can leave a message on our answering machine outside of these hours.
Email: [email protected]

• Roth A.,and Fonagy P. (2005) What Works for Whom: A critical review of psychotherapy research. Second Edition. The Guildford Press, London.
• Horton, K., Salkovskis, P.M., Kirk, J., Clark, D. (2006)
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Psychiatric problems. Oxford Medical Publications
• Williams C J & Garland A (2002). A cognitive-behavioural therapy assessment model for use in everyday clinical practice, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 8: 172-179.
apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/8/5/377
• NICE (2007) CG22: Anxiety: management of anxiety (panic disorder, with or without agoraphobia, and generalised anxiety disorder) in adults in primary, secondary and community care.
www.guidance.nice.org.uk/CG22
• NICE guide (2010) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for the management of common mental health problems.
www.nice.org.uk/usingguidance/commissioningguides/ cognitivebehaviouraltherapyservice/cbt.jsp

Further information about the content, reference sources or production of this leaflet can be obtained from the Patient Information Centre. If you would like to tell us what you think about this leaflet please get in touch.

This information can be made available in a range of formats on request (eg Braille, audio, larger print, easy read, BSL or other languages). Please contact the Patient Information Centre on 0191 246 7288

Published by the Patient Information Centre
2025 Copyright, Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust
Ref, PIC/669/0725 July 2025 V8
www.cntw.nhs.uk
Tel: 0191 246 7288
Review date 2028