Welcome to the HIT Guide

Welcome to Mindler's growing team of Self-employed, Affiliate CBT Clinicians. We can’t wait to watch our patients’ engagement and recovery rates continue to improve alongside your contribution.

This handbook provides most of the information you need to get started as a CBT Affiliate here at Mindler. Please familiarise yourself with its contents, alongside the information we provide in your contract. This guide will be updated regularly. The most up to date version will be available on The Hub, our bespoke training resource platform.

Your Validation

As with all new roles, when you start to work as an Affiliate CBT Clinician/self-employed worker at ieso, there will be a validation period. During this time, we provide as much feedback and support as you need to become the best typed therapy practitioner you can be. The validation process will take up to 3 months. There are some occasions where this would be extended, for example taking annual leave during this period or not completing enough cases.

What skills are we assessing during your validation period?

During your validation period, we are assessing:

• Your ability to deliver CBT via the typed therapy with fidelity to the model / protocols

• Your adherence to the evidence base

• Your ability to keep delivering good clinical outcomes.

What personal qualities are we assessing during this validation period?

During your validation period, we are assessing these qualities:

• Evidence-based practice

• Professional attitude and style

• Excellent interpersonal style

• Flexibility and the ability to reflect (in action and on action)

• Excellent written communication skills.

You have already demonstrated these qualities in your application. We will now be looking for continuing evidence of them during your validation period, and, as you will read in the quality control section below, throughout your time with Mindler.

How many patients do I need to treat during this validation period?

During this validation period, you will need to treat between five and ten patients. We recommend starting at ten, if you can. This gives us enough data to evaluate your effectiveness. An experienced Clinical Supervisor will support you and continue to provide clinical support throughout your time with Mindler.

What is the Validation process?

We allocate a Clinical Supervisor to you, who will contact you with a welcome email. Please look out for this. Check your spam if you have not received it within 48 hours from receiving your acceptance notification. It is mandatory for you to attend a one-to-one supervision session with your supervisor within the first 3 months. This provides an opportunity for you to ask any questions, gain any important feedback, and build a rapport with your Clinical Supervisor. We’ve found that clinicians really benefit from meeting their supervisors in person, especially since much of our communication will be through text.

If you have received feedback with areas to work on, then we encourage you to book a supervision session to review any areas of improvement. This allows you time and space to work on any feedback areas. You can and are encouraged to regularly access clinical supervision throughout this period. If you receive a complaint, clinical supervisors will invite you to book supervision.

It is the responsibility of the affiliate to book clinical supervision to ensure they receive the support they require following any feedback. It is also their responsibility to action any feedback or recommended CPD.

At the end of the validation period an email will be sent confirming that you have either:

a) Successfully completed our onboarding process. All continued work with ieso will then be reviewed in line with our quality control standards

b) Failed to meet the minimum standards and your contract with ieso is terminated. All decisions to end a Clinician’s contract with Mindler are overseen by the Senior Clinical Team and are final.

If you have any questions about the validation period, please discuss these with your Clinical Supervisor.

Ongoing quality control

Whilst we engage with highly skilled and highly qualified Clinicians, not all will find it easy to provide the most effective typed therapy online. So, we’ve developed a quality control system to support you to confidently deliver disorder-specific treatment interventions online, using typed therapy in ways that are congruent with the CBT model. This system includes clinical supervision, industry-standard quality control audits, ieso’s unique data enabled quality control reports, and access to our bespoke CBT training resource platform, The Hub.

Standard quality control audits

Mindler routinely audits all Clinicians’ clinical work to ensure quality control. We routinely use standard assessment tools, such as the computerised Cognitive Therapy Scale Revised (CTSR) for CBT Clinicians. We also routinely do clinical audits for compliance of processes, as outlined within the Clinician Manual on The Hub.

Mindler's unique data-enabled quality control tools

Our Science Team is breaking new ground in CBT by using your therapy session transcripts to better understand what works for whom. Every clinical insight your transcripts reveals is fed back into the ieso quality control system. As patients get better, so do all our Clinicians’ outcomes, and our data-powered support tools.

Here are just a couple of examples of the sophisticated ways we use data to help you learn and grow as a CBT Clinician.

What we expect from you

As a qualified Clinician, we expect:

Your practice to be in line with the NHS Talking Therapies Manual
Full risk assessments to be conducted at the first session with a patient and risk reviewed at all subsequent sessions
Record keeping to be in line with clinical medical records management and ieso’s documentation guidance
You to manage your caseload, including staying in contact with patients as per ieso’s messaging expectations
Provide CBT treatment that aligns with NICE guidelines
Highlight treatment progress or concerns with your clinical supervisor

As part of our quality control procedure, Mindler regularly audits clinical work. If you are not meeting expectations, your Supervisor will work with you. Please be aware we may stop allocating cases to you until we are confident that you understand how to meet our standards.

Clinical Performance Team Support & Audits

Our Clinical Performance Team is here to support you with any questions related to our processes and procedures on iaptus or our therapy site. Whether you need clarification, have technical queries, or seek advice on best practices, our team is ready to help.

Booking a 1-1 Support Session: You can directly book a 1-1 Teams meeting with one of the team members, with various time slots available throughout the week. This provides you with the flexibility to choose a time that suits your schedule.

To book in please view clinical performance team booking page:

Behind the Scenes: Ensuring Accuracy in Records and Pay

Our Clinical Performance Team work diligently behind the scenes to ensure that all sessions are recorded correctly, which directly impacts the accuracy of your pay. They are committed to making sure that everything runs smoothly, so your hard work is properly recognized and compensated.

Regular Audits: As part of their role, the Clinical Performance Team also conduct regular audits for all clinicians. These audits are designed to highlight areas of strength and identify any areas where further development may be beneficial. The audits are comprehensive, focusing on two key areas:

Clinical Compliance
Clinical Performance

Please view this process as supportive—the audits are here to assist you in your development. We are committed to helping you enhance your practice and are always available to guide you through any steps that may be needed.

Audit Process During Validation Period: The Clinical Performance Team will also send audit reports via email during this period. Along with your audits, they will provide guidance on any actions that may need to be taken.

Clinical Performance Queries: If you have any questions or queries specifically related to your clinical performance audit, please direct them to your Clinical Supervisor. You can easily book a meeting with your supervisor through the booking link they will have sent to you in your welcome email.

How are patients allocated

We allocate patients based on your availability. The more availability you have, the more patients you are likely you are to have patients provisionally allocated to you. This is subject to us having patients who are suited to video therapy to assign to you.

Minimum/ maximum caseload

We do not enforce a minimum caseload. However, we ask that you treat at least five to ten patients. We recommend treating no more than ten patients during your three-month validation period. Once you are validated you can build up to however many patients you and your Clinical Supervisor agree are safe and ethical to work with.

While ieso will always endeavour to make full use of your available time, due to the flexible nature of our treatment, we cannot guarantee that this will always be possible. Patients who come to ieso often have appointments at different times from face-to-face services, including during evenings and weekends. Please arrange appointments at suitable times for you and your patient.

Treating patients in the area you work in

As a Clinician working with ieso you cannot contractually treat patients via ieso if you are already working for the referring provider the patient is from. For example, if you currently work for iCope in Islington as well as with ieso then you cannot treat a patient from Islington with us.

If you are allocated an ieso patient in the geographical area you work in, please email therapist@mindler.co.uk asking us to reassign the patient. If you change your employer or the geographic area you work in, please email therapist@Mindler.co.uk so we can make a note on your profile.

If you have any questions, please email therapist@mindler.co.uk.

What will my pay be per hour and how will I get paid?

As a CBT Clinician working with Mindler on a self-employed worker basis, you will receive a single payment per month to cover all your work. Our Accounts Team will prepare ‘a statement of hours worked’ for you and send it to you for checking on around the 17th of each month.

Payments are made into your nominated bank account, one month in arrears. For example,in October you would be sent the statement of hours worked in September to check and confirm, then you would receive the payment for September’s hours on the last working day of October.

Payment will show up on your statement as ‘ieso Digital Health’.

Appointments in iaptus are cross referenced to the time in session in the therapy room to determine length of session for payment. For example, if a 60-minute appointment was booked in, but the CDP is showing 32-46 minutes undertaken, then payments are reduced to 45 minutes.

If you have any questions about your statement, please get in touch with accounts@mindler.co.uk

ieso reserves the right to vary the rates payable at any time by giving written notice of the changes to Affiliate Clinicians.

Please note that the rate agreed includes a proportion of time for ensuring that the clinical governance framework and clinical delivery model is followed for each patient. This includes completing timely, professional clinical notes (within 48 hours), referrals, and signposting and communicating clearly with the patient via the messaging system and letters.

We provide free clinical supervision to our network of clinicians.

Will CBT Clinicians be paid for DNAs, late cancellations, or aborted sessions?

On the first two occasions a patient does not attend a confirmed appointment or cancels late, you will be paid 50% for the sessions plus 17.5% holiday pay. In total, a maximum of two of these in any combination will be paid for an episode of care. Subsequent DNAs/late cancellations will be unpaid.

For example, if a patient DNAs or late cancels an appointment, and then they DNA or late cancel a subsequent appointment, followed by another late cancellation or DNA, then the following is paid:

A. First DNA/late cancellation: Paid at 50% of session rate

B. Second DNA/late cancellation: Paid at 50% of session rate

C. Third DNA/late cancellation: No payment is made

Late cancellations are defined as when a session is cancelled by a patient within 48 hours of the scheduled appointment time. Our therapy platform will automatically record all hours worked, DNA, and late cancellations so you don’t have to worry about making a note of them when they happen.

If our therapy platform or the patient’s internet goes down for any reason, these aborted sessions will be paid for as below:

Payments for aborted sessions:

Clinician issue, no session completed - No pay

Patient's internet - Full hourly rate

Mindler site issue - Full hourly rate

Please contact accounts@mindler.co.uk if you have questions regarding this.

Working from Abroad

We receive a lot of requests from Clinicians to work from abroad. Since leaving the EU, changes in the BABCP accreditation criteria and GDPR data transfer regulations mean there is a set of regulatory requirements Clinicians need meet to work abroad.

We capture these below. More information can be found in our Clinician’s Manual.

As an Affiliate working with patients, you are not able to treat patients unless it is in one of the European Economic area (EEA) or other approved countries listed below. If you are unsure of the data protection status of the country, please contact us at therapist@Mindler.co.uk.
More information can also be found in the Clinician’s Manual.

EEA countries

Austria

Germany

Malta

Belgium

Greece

Netherlands

Bulgaria

Hungary

Norway

Croatia

Iceland

Poland

Republic of Cyprus

Ireland

Portugal

Denmark

Italy

Romania

Estonia

Latvia

Slovakia

FInland

Liechtenstein

Spain

France

Luxembourg

Sweden

Other approved countries

Andorra

Israel

Japan (upon application)

Argentina

Jersey

Republic of South Korea

Canada (upon application)

New Zealand

Faroe Islands

Switzerland

Guernsey

Uruguay

Isle of Man

Gibraltar (upon application)

You need to remain accredited with an accrediting body. The BACP have changed their expectations with this so please check the current guidance. It is your responsibility to ensure you have enough UK-based clinical hours to remain accredited.
You need adequate insurance to cover you from any country you plan to work from. Not all insurance policies provide worldwide cover. As a self-employed worker, it is your responsibility to ensure that the country you plan to work from is covered.
If you are working from abroad, you need to be confident that you can manage the risk of a patient from the country they are based in. Calling an ambulance, for example, is more difficult from abroad. Please ensure you know what to do and how to manage this. Your Supervisor can provide you with some helpful information, but it is your responsibility to respond to the needs of your patients.
Any Clinician working with ieso needs to provide a DBS check at the time of application and while continuing to work with us. You need a UK address and ID to verify that address to apply for a UK-based DBS.

If you are planning on working from abroad, it is also important to let ieso and your Supervisor know so we can support you with any concerns or needs you may have.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please reach out to the team on therapist@mindler.co.uk

Holiday, Sickness and Extended Leave

Sickness

If you are unwell, please notify your patients where possible and let them know you will be in touch to rebook. If you feel too unwell or are unable to get online and need us to contact your patients on your behalf, please email therapist@mindler.co.uk with your case reference numbers and we will let your patients know.

Extended Leave

A break of up to 8 weeks allows you to remain in the Mindler network. Please inform your Clinical Supervisor and email therapist@mindler.co.uk to let us know the period you plan to be away so we can discuss how to safely end your caseload.

If your break extends beyond 8 weeks, you will be placed on a priority waiting list. You can return to practice once we are accepting returners and subject to service demand.

Please stay in touch with us and let us know when you are hoping to return. Provided your certifications and insurance remain up to date, we will support your return when capacity allows.

If you take a break of 12 months or more, you will be required to reapply and complete the onboarding and validation process before resuming work with Mindler. This is in line with best practice.

Holiday (two weeks or less)

If you are planning to take leave, please:

Update your absence dates on iaptus.
Block any availability on iaptus.
Pause your work with current patients, let them know how long you will be away, and ensure that each patient has the relevant interventions in place to maintain their overall wellbeing during this time.
Email your Clinical Supervisor to let them know and discuss any cases that cannot wait until your return.

If you intend to take a holiday of two weeks or more, we would be grateful if you do not take on any new patients in the two weeks preceding this, and ensure that a risk management plan is in place with all patients. If you have a risk concern, please raise a supervision ticket and ensure it is reviewed with plenty of time before you go on leave.

If you want to stop working with us

If you decide that working online is not for you, let us know by emailing therapist@mindler.co.uk and your Clinical Supervisor. It would be greatly appreciated if you could let us know six weeks in advance if you intend to leave, as this will give us enough time to allocate patients to an alternative Clinician.

If you would like to work with us again, you are welcome to re-apply. We welcome those returning to our network, and if you need to complete the induction and validation process again, we will make this as smooth as possible for you.