No real change to waiting times for talking therapies!

HI magazine uncovers six month waits for NHS counseling
http://www.hi-mag.com/health-insurance/product-area/occupational-health/article376595.ece

This article was published on the internet recently and states amongst other things that:

The data, collected from 120 PCTs under the Freedom of Information Act, shows that waiting times have increased in some areas since 2009

At least 10 primary care trusts (PCTs) in England have waits of more than six months to see a trained counsellor.

Today, 41% of 85 PCTs have waits of more than three months for counseling, compared to 29% of 90 PCTs in 2009. Patients wait for more than three months for CBT in a quarter (27%) of PCTs, a similar proportion to 2009

Oh boy! That 170million really didn’t go very far did it?

Although in reality, is it reasonable to expect the NHS to recruit enough staff to combat that waiting list within four years?

If they plan to not leave anyone waiting more than a month they will require quite a lot of staff in the short term to combat the high demand for the service to reduce the list and then when it is down what do they do with the staff?

Equally even if they can employ that many staff do they have the facilities to allow them to practise?

A gradual build up of new staff and the office space for them to work from seems far more likely to have been their plan, but how long is a reasonable length of time for them to get that waiting list down? 4 years, longer?

  

It seems they have not learnt anything from the past problems with hospital waiting lists and the endeavours to get those down yet I am unsure as to whether the waiting lists in those areas are less than six months or not?

However since there have been increases in some waiting times it seems obvious that this plan is not making any progress.