NCPS Polimapper Case Study
“We loved Polimapper – it helped us start some great conversations, and MPs were all over it.” Meg Moss, Head of Public Affairs & Advocacy at NCPS”
The brief
As one of the largest professional bodies for counsellors and psychotherapists in the UK, the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) is committed to safeguarding public trust and ensuring high-quality and ethical therapy.
NCPS advocates for accessible, timely, and relational mental health support. This is why, through collaboration with policymakers, healthcare providers, and local stakeholders, they seek to highlight the value of counselling and psychotherapy as key components of the nation’s mental health strategy.
The organisation was looking to create a clear picture of the gaps in mental health provision in England and Scotland and highlight where additional support could make a real difference. This is where Polimapper stepped in.
The Solution
To build a snapshot of waiting times and counselling capacity across England and Scotland on a Westminster and Holyrood constituency level, a combination of NHS waiting times data alongside NCPS Annual Member Survey figures was used.
Talking and psychological therapy waiting times data by Integrated Care Board was collected from ‘NHS Waiting Times’ statistical datasets. This data was then converted to fit constituency boundaries by the Polimapper team.
Each constituency was mapped against a health board, and where a constituency sat across more than one board, the one with the largest share of the constituency was used.
By mapping constituencies to their relevant local health board, an estimated value was calculated based on population distribution. This methodology does rely on an even distribution of populations, but represents the best modelling available for constituency level statistics.
“Stakeholders loved it! Everyone found it so helpful to be able to drill down into the figures for their own constituencies – and, in fact, having a few MPs standing around and comparing “scores” was really interesting, and sparked some valuable discussions.”
Outcome
Polimapper has been a valuable tool for the NCPS, helping visualise counselling capacity on a geographical level and present the data in a clear, accessible format.
Meg Moss, head of public affairs and advocacy at NCPS, explains the positive outcomes of her Polimapper projects:
“Polimapper has added a really valuable, tangible resource that complements the work we’ve been doing incredibly well. If you’re talking to MPs, you really need to be able to give them data based on their own constituencies, but more than that I think they love to see how they compare to the national average, or the constituencies next door. If you want to showcase your data in a way that looks great, is incredibly user-friendly, and elevates your data to, not even the next level, but the level above that one, then I’d say to work with Polimapper and be glad you did so.”
Find out more about NCPS and their commitment to safeguarding public trust and ensuring high-quality and ethical therapy here.
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