TALKING THERAPIES MODEL

Talking Therapies

NHS Talking Therapies — course-level currencies driven by PHQ-9/GAD-7 severity and contact intensity.

The clinical note

Adult patient, 42-year-old woman. Referred to Talking Therapies by her GP. Presenting problem: low mood and worry for 8 months. PHQ-9 score at intake: 14 (moderate depression). GAD-7 score at intake: 8 (moderate anxiety). She reports persistent sadness, poor concentration, sleep onset difficulty, and avoiding social contact. No psychosis, no mania, no self-harm in the current episode. A course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is planned, 6 sessions, weekly contact intensity (one session per week), first contact completed and attended. Diagnosis: recurrent depressive disorder, current episode moderate, without psychotic symptoms. Previous episode was mild and fully remitted.

Step 1 · Routing to ICD-10-CM mental-health categories

F3381%
F4110%
F329%
F010%
F020%

Step 2 · Ranking candidate codes within the top categories

F33.198%
F33.81%
F33.91%
F33.00%
F33.20%

Step 3 · The coded payment record

ICD-10-CM DIAGNOSIS
F33.1
F33.1, F33.8, F33.9 (top candidates)
PAYMENT CURRENCY · 2026/27
MAT01D
Depression — Moderate — High intensity
MHNRG SECTION
Adult - Mood and Anxiety Disorders
diagnostic resource-group family
fields the agent extracted for this currency model
age at referralnot used by the currency model
clinical need (diagnosis)PHQ-9 14 / GAD-7 8 at intake
courseCBT, 6 sessions
contact intensityweekly (one session/week)
attendance outcomeattended

Service report — NHS Talking Therapies

currency model: Talking Therapies The 2026/27 scheme pays Talking Therapies at course level: 54 currencies built from the presenting condition (depression, generalised anxiety, PTSD, OCD, phobias…), its measured severity and the contact intensity. There is no ICD leaf in the currency itself — the ICD diagnosis is the clinical record under the course.

recorded fieldNELFT completeness
clinical need (diagnosis or presenting complaint)9.6%
PHQ-9 / GAD-7 severity conditions≈ 0.1%
anxiety-specific measures≤ 32.53%
contact intensity0.9%
attendance outcome invalid or unknownnot checked
age at referral · primary reason · team · bed typenot used by this model

The agent above read the PHQ-9/GAD-7 severity straight from the note text (14 / 8 → moderate) and returned both the ICD diagnosis (F33.1, recurrent depressive disorder, current episode moderate) and the course currency MAT01D. The severity scores are what their system currently fails to record (≈0.1%) — and they are exactly what a structured agent capture extracts for free from the note.