ProblemShared was founded to provide improved access to mental health professionals. We offer a hand-picked team of counsellors and psychiatrists to both the general public and to institutional clients ranging from Universities to businesses to public sector bodies such as the NHS. We believe it is a human right to receive high quality and timely access to appropriate healthcare. Using technology we mean to ensure this happens.

ProblemShared offers affordable access to mental health professionals wherever and whenever you need. We have a broad selection of mental health professionals, many of whom speak a number of languages, ready to talk to you.

We are not able to offer treatment in severe or life threatening situations. If you think you are at risk of harm or at risk of harming others, you should look at the resources available on our “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” page, call 999 or go immediately to your local Accident and Emergency department.

You may know exactly what is wrong, but you also may not. You may simply know that you don’t feel great. Mental ill health is complex. Why not book an assessment and speak to one of our experts so they can guide you to the right clinician?

Yes – we bring together a hand-picked network of UK registered mental health professionals and we have a rigorous accreditation checking policy to ensure that all of our practitioners are vetted.

We only use Psychiatrists who currently hold or have held Consultant posts with the NHS. They must be on the General Medical Council (GMC)’s specialist register. They are also fully insured.

We hold our Counsellors to similar account. They must be members of an accredited industry body and have undergone DBS checks. They are all fully insured.

Yes. There has been a lot of research into this question and although the majority of it comes from the US, it holds true for the UK as well. The following resources should give you an idea of the efficacy of telemedicine and counselling when compared to more traditional consultation methods:

Wagner, B., Horn, A. and Maercker, A. (2019). Internet-based versus face-to-face cognitive-behavioral intervention for depression: A randomized controlled non-inferiority trial.
http://www.jad-journal.com/article/S0165-0327(13)00512-0/pdf

P, A. (2019). Internet-based and other computerized psychological treatments for adult depression: a meta-analysis. – PubMed – NCBI. [online] Ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20183695

Bergström, J., Andersson, G., Ljótsson, B., Rück, C., Andréewitch, S., Karlsson, A., Carlbring, P., Andersson, E. and Lindefors, N. (2019). Internet-versus group-administered cognitive behaviour therapy for panic disorder in a psychiatric setting: a randomised trial.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/10/54

Epstein, R. (2019). Distance Therapy Comes of Age. Scientific American.
https://www.onlinetherapyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/scimind1.pdf

The nomenclature can be confusing ! We’ll try and clarify: 

At a high level:

Psychiatrists are medical doctor and as such can prescribe medication for mental health conditions – such as depression, anxiety, ADHD or bipolar disorder. If you are working with a psychiatrist, a lot of the treatment may be focused on medication management.alongside talking therapies such as psychology or counselling

Psychologists offer counselling and psychotherapy and perform psychological testing for mental ill-health. They are not medical doctors but have a doctoral degree (PhD, PsyD, or EdD) in psychology, which is the study of the mind and human behaviour. . Psychologists cannot write prescriptions or perform medical procedures.

Counsellors are mental health professional who have completed an accredited training which qualifies them to work with people over a short or long term to help them bring about effective change and/or enhance their wellbeing.

A coach focuses on helping people attain their goals in life. They might help you to get motivated, set goals, and hold you to account. Life coaching is not regulated.

Our Psychiatrists can prescribe medication for certain conditions if they think this is the appropriate treatment.

Our prescriptions can be dispensed at any pharmacy.

We operate a highly transparent fee structure – with no hidden charges or tie-ins.  ProblemShared aims to provide a better rate than you would otherwise be required to pay in order to access these professionals through their existing private practices. Moreover, we provide rigorous vetting and training to ensure they are as prepared as possible to help you with your issues.

For Private Client sessions, prices are set by individual therapists and vary depending on their experience and individual practices. The significant range and breadth of therapists available through the site ensures that cost is not a barrier to accessing high quality therapy.

Our Psychiatry prices are standardised and include the full costs associated with a treatment (please see below for details).

For Students and Employees referred by your University or Company you may not have to pay at all. Please refer to your Student counselling services or Company’s Human Resources for details.

Pricing

For Private Clients:

• Counselling prices are set by the individual therapist and tend to range from £30 – £100 for a 50 minute session.
• Psychiatry prices are set at £300 and in the majority of cases, you will need a 60 minute consultation. The cost includes a written opinion or assessment letter with a formal diagnosis and a suggested treatment plan where indicated.  Your clinician may detail additional fees payable after the assessment, for which you will receive an invoice.  An example would be the costs for prescribing and the prices are set out below.

Standard psychiatry fees are as follows for self-pay patients:

You will be asked for your payment details when you book the appointment and a full breakdown of costs is available to view before you confirm the appointment.

For self paying clients, payment will be taken through our Website using debit card or credit card via Stripe – a highly secure and widely trusted payment provider with gold-standard security systems to keep your details safe.

Currently we do not accept patients wishing to claim on insurance. We are working on this and hope to have arrangements in place by the end of 2020.

For Private Practice clients, we support and adhere to your legal right to cancel your booking 48 hours before the start of your session and receive a full refund. We will process the refund as soon as possible and, at the latest, within 30 (thirty) calendar days of the day on which you gave us notice of cancellation.

Should you need to cancel within 48 hours of your session, you are not entitled to a refund. If you fail to attend a booked consultation without giving us 48 hours notice, you will be charged the full cost of the session.

As a rule, yes.

We believe in continuity of care and will do our level best to ensure you see the same clinician for the duration of your treatment.. However, should this for some reason not be possible we will help you find an equally appropriate clinician and minimise disruption.

Many of our practitioners offer free or low cost introductory sessions and you can search for them using our search filters. We also hope that our filters help you identify a practitioner who feels like is a good fit for you. If, however, you meet with a practitioner and do not feel that the relationship is working, you can change by looking through our community and booking with a different practitioner. We would encourage you to speak to your practitioner about your concerns first.

We take your privacy and data security extremely seriously. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy, in the footer of this website.

We are also members of the Information Commisioner’s Office, an independent authority set up to uphold data privacy for individuals.

Yes. Our Clinicians are available 52 weeks a year from 8am to 9pm. Some are available at weekends.

Should you wish to continue your sessions with an NHS clinician we will happily share information with your new clinician if (a) You give express permission in writing that you are happy for us to do this, (b) We have received a letter from that clinician requesting the information.

Currently, no. We are working to remedy this.

The CQC regulate our Psychiatry service. The GMC regulates our doctors.

Our Counsellors are all members of regulatory bodies and follow best practice guidelines set by those regulatory bodies. Further, we ask them to adhere to a code of conduct drawn from the requirements of professional psychotherapy bodies.

We are working with the BACP to regulate our psychology and therapy services. We hope this will be in place by the end of 2020.

We welcome any and all feedback!

Please email us at help@problemshared.net with any comments or issues you might have as soon as possible so we can remedy these as quickly as possible. Be sure to give as much detail as possible.  

We will investigate any issues and keep you updated on the results of the investigation. We shall also discuss the investigation with you. 

You may also submit a disagreement with us for online resolution to the European Online Dispute Resolution platform here.

Please review our full complaints policy, which is viewable in the footer of this website. Should you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch at help@problemshared.net.

Our Psychiatrists are also regulated by the GMC and if the subject of your complaint is to do with the professional standards or behaviour of one of our consultant Psychiatrists and we are unable to satisfy you that we have dealt with it appropriately, you can report your concerns or make a complaint to the GMC here.