An audit of a service showed referrals fell short of national guidelines. Nicky Hartigan and Gurveen Ranger discuss the factors that impede take up of this intervention and how to overcome them

This article describes an audit of national guidelines for cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for schizophrenia and other psychoses in a community mental health team. The audit confirmed that the number of referrals for CBT for people under the care of the team with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or psychosis fell short of national guidelines. Barriers to implementation of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines for schizophrenia and other psychoses at the service user, practitioner and organisational levels are outlined in the article and recommendations for ways to address these issues are explored.