NHS healthcare teams are being offered a helping hand to introduce a multi-award winning messaging service which provides safe and secure texting between clinicians and service users.

The East Midlands Academic Health Science Network is investing more than £100,000 into the ChatHealth NHS messaging service to encourage frontline teams across the UK to improve access to healthcare using digital platforms. The funding will cover set-up of messaging programmes in a number of NHS Trusts that want to licence use of the innovative messaging service.

With the support, the ChatHealth team will be able to provide assisted service transformations for a number of adopting organisations including;

· training staff at new sites which focuses on how nurses can safeguard service users who are seeking advice and support by sending a message;

· project implementations support to help get new services up and running in schools within three months;

· access to safe and secure text messaging software and proven working practices which help ensure no messages from vulnerable service-users go un-answered.

Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust has been offering a ChatHealth messaging service for over a year. During this time it has received 3,500 messages from service users seeking health advice and support, delivering an additional 750 health contacts without impacting nurse’s capacity. The Trust’s school nursing team offers access to support by text message to 65,000 11-19s and staffs the service with one triage nurse.

ChatHealth project lead, Jimmy Endicott, said: “We are delighted that the East Midlands Academic Health Science Network is making it possible for us to diffuse the innovation in such a cost effective way. It’s great news for NHS teams that want to improve access to support and for service users who otherwise might not engage with healthcare”.

Chris Hart, Commercial Director at EMAHSN said: “ChatHealth won one of our Innovation in Healthcare awards last year and it is great to be able to provide extra support to enable the spread of the service throughout the East Midlands and beyond.

“It is a truly inclusive and innovative way for reaching out to patients, making use of technology that the smartphone generation is familiar with. So, we expect lots of interest from teams that support younger people like school nursing and health visiting teams, mental health and sexual health services”.

Clinical staff using messaging say they are speaking with more new service users across a broader range of issues and they are able to intervene earlier to prevent the escalation of care. The project won an award for improving access to care for underserved communities, such as adolescent males, who are known to be less likely to access healthcare face to face.

Feedback from service users is positive. Teenage users in particular say they are more likely to ask for health support from a qualified professional now they have the option of asking questions remotely or anonymously - they say it can be less embarrassing to talk about difficult issues in writing and often make initial contact by text message before seeing a nurse in person.

The service is now in use in a number of NHS Trusts across the UK which want to improve access to healthcare for mobile device users. Guidance from the NHS England encourages the NHS to embrace mobile technology to connect more easily with tech savvy service users.

ChatHealth and EMAHSN invites NHS Trusts that would like to benefit from the available funding to call Jimmy Endicott on 0116 295 7937, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or contact via @jimmyendicott on Twitter.

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Note to editors:

- East Midlands Academic Health Science Network (EMAHSN) is one of 15 Academic Health Science Networks in England. EMAHSN brings together the NHS, universities, industry and social care to transform the health of the region’s 4.5M residents and stimulate wealth. Current priorities focus on identifying and spreading innovations that address challenges including cancer, obesity, diabetes, mental health, Technology Care Enabled Services and support for frail older people.

- For more information @EM_AHSN

- Awards won by ChatHealth include the NHS England Innovation Challenge Prize for Digital Patient and Clinician Engagement, overall winner of the UK’s Patient Experience Network Awards 2014 and the East Midland Innovation Healthcare Award for Improving Access to Care for Underserved Communities.

- Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust provides a range of health and wellbeing services for people living Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. The Trust serves a population of one million and employs approximately 5,400 staff. For more information visit: www.leicspart.nhs.uk

Media enquiries: Chris Taylor 0115 748 4242 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Lucy Hose 0115 748 4243 / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.