Health Innovation East Midlands has worked with Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to evaluate the Trust’s Well-Track intervention to improve the physical and mental health of people using their mental health services.

The intervention uses a combination of health trackers (Fitbit) and face to face support to increase patients’ motivation to do more physical activity, which in turn has several physical and mental wellbeing benefits.

The evaluation found that Well-Track improves sleep quality, physical activity and mental and physical health in people experiencing depression, psychosis and those at risk of severe mental illness.

The intervention has been found to be beneficial in terms of wellbeing, depression, sleep, goal achievement, confidence, social connections, resilience, motivation, and preventing weight gain.

The Well-Track intervention uses an individualised approach to wellbeing that includes a wearable activity and sleep tracker (Fitbit); one session with mental health service staff providing physical activity and sleep hygiene advice; a brief motivational interview; completing a goal setting workbook; and one or two further engagement, feedback, and discussion sessions.

Michael Ellis, Senior Innovation Lead at Health Innovation East Midlands said: “Compared to levels in the general population, people who experience mental health issues often have poorer physical fitness, lower physical activity, poorer sleep quality, and higher incidence of insomnia. Physical activity and sleep are interconnected with mental health, physical health, wellbeing, quality of life, cognition, and day-to-day functioning.

“Appropriate levels of physical activity are beneficial for mental and physical health, wellbeing and functioning, and can reduce symptoms of mental illness.

“The evaluation found that Well-Track can be fully integrated into Early Intervention in Psychosis and At-Risk Mental State services and had a positive impact on insomnia, wellbeing, and depression.

“The benefits of the intervention were seen at 4 weeks, and sustained at 8 weeks indicating longer term benefits from this relatively simple and low-cost intervention.”

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