Mental health is now recognised as a key priority within health and care, and with unavoidable statistics on the prevalence of mental health conditions it’s easy to understand why:
- One in four adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any given year
- The cost of mental health to the economy is estimated at £105 billion a year
- One in eight children and young people aged 5-19 have at least one mental disorder
Mental health doesn’t discriminate and can effect anyone, at any time. Mental health conditions can have a serious impact on a person’s day-to-life, and in addition can even effect mortality rates. states that there is a 10-25 year life expectancy reduction in patients with severe mental disorders.
Mental health is referenced 196 times in the NHS Long Term Plan, published in early 2019, with a strong commitment to increase funding for mental health services by £2.3 billion per year. And, in a recent survey by NIHR commissioned by NHS England the National Survey of Local Innovation and Research Needs of the NHS, mental illness was outlined as a top priority treatment area and top priority patient group for innovation and research.
So while mental health initiatives and treatment are at the forefront of public discussion, we suggest that it’s important not just to expand current NHS services, we need to research, innovate and embrace change in order to make the much-required impact.
Our programme Transforming Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) project, QbTest, is an example of this. ADHD affects 3-5% of children and young people in the UK and can impact on personal, academic, family and social interaction. In the UK children can wait on average 18 months from their first appointment to receiving a formal ADHD diagnosis.
When originally testing the programme, the intention was to benefit patients through reduced delay to diagnosis – which in turn would save the NHS time and money. QbTest measures attention, impulsivity and motor activity all at the same time.
These indicators are main symptoms of ADHD and accurate measurement adds objectivity to support fast diagnosis. The computerised attention/impulsivity test is linked to an infrared camera and can differentiate ADHD in children with around 90% accuracy.
Watch our video on this programme and the effects and impacts on patients and NHS staff:
Another important innovation for mental health, developed at Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, ChatHealth was designed to support with health issues of young people. ChatHealth is a safe and secure text messaging service that provides convenient, confidential support and advice. It is currently available to nearly two million young people (around one out of every three teenagers) in around 40 healthcare teams across the country. Although no solely concentrated on mental health, it is recognised that younger people’s mental health problems are significant – according to the Mental Health Foundation 70% of young people who experience these problems don’t have appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.
This innovation helps to target harder to reach groups, who are less likely to feel able to discuss their mental health concerns in person. For example, adolescent males are more likely to ask a question by sending a text message. Around 1 in 5 ChatHealth service users is male compared to 1 in 10 attending school nurse clinics.
Utilising technology to reach harder to access groups is a strong example of how the health system can innovate and change the way its traditionally offered services.
These are just a couple of examples of how it’s important to pinpoint a problem within mental health diagnosis and treatment and research and innovate in order to improve. Innovations don’t always need to be new technologies, but can also just be a change in the way health and care organisations work together to provide holistic mental health prevention or treatment – this can be demonstrated through a new focus on social prescribing which would enable healthcare professionals to be better equipped to refer people to a range of local non-clinical services. Where mental health is concerned, social prescribing can be one means of supporting self-management, which is an important factor.
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Author
Wayne Kitchener - Deputy Head of Innovation Programme Delivery