A review of the evolution of research evidence and activity for NHS primary care counselling

This is an article of two halves. The first half profiles primary care counselling research that grew out of the introduction of evidence-based practice in the late 1990s. The key characteristic of this stage of the evidence evolution is that the majority of services awaited supportive evidence as passive recipients. By contrast, the second half of this article profiles an example of current activity in which services have a much less passive role as they rise to the new challenges bought about by the new National Health Service [NHS] performance management and clinical governance agendas.