title: Achievements of the Australian Access to Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS) program: summarising (almost) a decade of key evaluation data.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Introduced in July 2001, Australian Access to Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS) was the inaugural national policy initiative to provide community access to government-funded psychological services in primary care. Our aim was to examine the achievements of ATAPS in relation to its stated objectives using a set of indicators that largely drew on data from a minimum data set that we designed for the evaluation of ATAPS.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used de-identified professional-, consumer- and session-level data from the minimum dataset, and secondary analyses of our quantitative and qualitative data collected for a series of specific evaluation studies. Available data covered the period from 1 July 2003 to 31 December 2012.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Approximately 350,000 referrals were made to the ATAPS program over the 9.5 year analysis period, 79 % of which resulted in services. Over 1.4 million sessions were offered. Overall, 29 % of consumers were male, 4 % children, and 3 % Aboriginal people; 54 % of consumers had depression and 41 % an anxiety disorder; at least 60 % were on low incomes; and around 50 % resided outside of major cities. The most common interventions delivered were cognitive and behavioural therapies. Selected outcome measures indicated improvement in mental health symptoms.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Access to Allied Psychological Services achieved its objectives within a decade of operation. The program delivered evidence-based services to a substantial number of consumers who were disadvantaged and historically would not have accessed services. Importantly, where data were available, there were indications that ATAPS achieved positive clinical outcomes for consumers. This suggests that ATAPS carved an important niche by successfully addressing unmet need of hard-to-reach consumers and through means that were not available via other programs. It will be interesting to see the effects from July 2016 of the reform of ATAPS, which will see ATAPS subsumed under psychological services commissioned by regional primary care organisations.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia ; School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Herston, QLD 4006 Australia.
authors.forename: Bridget
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6255-017X
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bassilios
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Angela
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nicholas
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Lennart
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Reifels
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Kylie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: King
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Justine
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fletcher
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Machlin
authors.affiliation: Nossal Institute for Global Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ftanou
authors.affiliation: Nossal Institute for Global Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Grant
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Blashki
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, The University of Queensland, Herston, QLD 4006 Australia.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Burgess
authors.affiliation: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, 3010 Australia.
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pirkis
keywords: Access to Allied Psychological Services; Mental health policy; Mental health service; Primary health care