Search

Innovation and Multi-Agency Collaboration Key to Improving UK Mental Health Services 

Innovation and Multi-Agency Collaboration Key to Improving UK Mental Health Services 

In an informative panel discussion, brought together by Curia’s Health Care and Life Sciences Research Group, key industry leaders and innovators across mental health and care discussed the current state of mental health provision in the country. They highlighted the need for collaborative, multi-agency teams to join forces, utilising innovative tech solutions in order to reduce waiting times and enable clinicians to spend real time with patients. 

Held by Curia’s Health Care and Life Sciences Research Group, the panel featured:

  • Preet Kaur Gill, MP, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Business Secretary and former Shadow Minister for Primary Care and Public Health 
  • Professor Ann Keen – Former Labour Health Minister
  • Paula Sheriff – Former MP for Dewsbury and former Shadow Minister for Social Care and Mental Health
  • Dr Melinda Rees – Chief Executive, Pysomics
  • Zoe Keddie – Chief Digital Information Officer, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust 
  • Sanya Rajpal – Founder, Adagio VR 
  • Jon Van Niekerk – Group Medical Director, Cygnet 
  • Ben Howlett, CEO, Curia
Screenshot 2025 02 04 102857

The Time For Mental Health Change is Now

Kicking off the Mental Health Roundtable discussion, Preet Kaur Gill shared her concern about the number of children and young people experiencing severe mental health problems in the UK. Preet said that the removal of children centres and early years support by previous governments, alongside outdated legislation, has meant there is a real problem with mental health support for children, especially in Birmingham. 

To combat this, she said, the Labour manifesto has made clear commitments with 8500 new mental health support staff and folling out networks of new future hubs. She emphasised:

“Due to limited resources, multi-agencies working together has got to be the way forward. We also want to modernise the mental health legislation.”

Professor Ann Keen, former Health Minister in Gordon Brown’s government, agreed that now is very much the time to act on the issues prevalent within mental health support. She added:

“Today’s debate is so important because it is critical what is happening to our children and those with learning disabilities. We really need a fresh start and I am excited to talk about how we are going to go about doing this.” 

Paula Sheriff, former MP for Dewsbury, spoke about the need for any governmental action taken to not dilute the mental health agenda and urged for the problems in this sector to be prioritised accordingly. She said:

“Technology has a big part to play in this area but I am keen to see that we create a framework and then look at how technology can support that, rather than the other way around.” 

Inconsistency of Support 

A number of audience members spoke about their personal experiences advocating for their children within current mental health services in the NHS. They spoke of the fear of children falling through the gaps if they were not there to support them and guide their care. They raised the problem of inconsistent support, long waiting lists and having to fight for any care that was available. 

Professor Anne Keen said these stories were disturbing to hear. She stated that it is incredibly difficult to get anyone to make a decision to help you. She said that energy and effort is required to fix what is currently a failing system. Although the panel agreed that the vast majority of people working in mental health are trying their best, they also were unanimous that underfunding, lack of resources, and an unintegrated system made consistent, effective support very hard to come by. 

Paula Sheriff shared a distressing constituency case from her time in office, where a girl was severely self harming and needed to be sectioned. The only bed available for her was in Plymouth. This was a big issue because her and her family were based in West Yorkshire. 

Paula emphasised that mental health does not discriminate, and that early intervention is the key. She added:

“Specialist care will always be needed, but if we could get better support in schools, better resources in the community and family care, things would be better.  Because a problem left untreated will become more severe in adulthood.” 

Technology and Innovation has a Profound Impact 

John Van Niekerk from Cygnet spoke about the upswell in really good practice within the use of technology and innovation. He said research has shown a lot of staff are complaining about the moral injury of working in the current system, due to long waiting lists and revolving door situations, which both affect the ability to help patients. 

“We have seen when using technology in the right way, it can have a profound impact on getting waiting lists down and increasing productivity. I would love to see this lead to a freeing up of conditions which allow for seeing patients and providing care, instead of just feeding bureaucracy.” – John Van Niekerk Group Medical Director, Cygnet

Dr Melinda Rees,  Pysomics, Chief Executive added that it takes too long to get support for mental health in the UK, with waiting lists of over 20 years for neuro developmental assessments in some parts of the country. She shared that the real challenge is NHS tech adoption. 

Innovation in Reducing Waiting Times 

Jon Van Niekerk, Group Medical Director at Cygnet shared a successful case study of the Oxleas NHS Trust, who received NHS team of the year because of their fabulous work reducing a 5 year waiting list for ADHD assessment to just 12 months. They did this through the use of automation and are now feeling the full effects of utilising technology to help both clinicians and those seeking treatment. 

The members of the roundtable agreed that this type of success should be rolled out across the country with efforts invested into a national rollout. Sharing the code behind the automation was one suggested method of achieving this. 

Melinda Rees said: “Most clinicians become clinicians because they want to spend time with patients, not writing up notes. From this perspective, technology should be adopted that writes up notes for clinicians, linking patient records and taking time away from laborious administration processes.”

Reeves shared how her platform has been deployed across 8 million people in the NHS through mental health NHS trusts, supporting clinicians by asking service users before they come to appointments a whole range of questions. This reduces repetitive questioning and presents information to clinicians so they can ask only required questions.

In Hertfordshire, by using this technology, via an independent evaluation from Health Innovation Network East, partners have been able to reduce waiting times to a mind-blowing 29 days for adult mental health services. 

Zoe Keddy, Chief Information Officer for South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, shared how her team are using data alongside technology to drive improvement through LUCI – locating useful clinical information. 

The tool identifies unmet needs through analysis of patient EPRs, allowing data to be analysed at a variety of levels in order to be more reactive at offering effective patient care. Through LUCI, Zoe and her team are building closer relationships with patients and are seeing improved individual outcomes. 

Another example shared was from Sanya Rajpal, founder of Adagio VR. Her team is using virtual reality to provide early intervention for common mental health disorders, from a trauma based approach.  

Rajpal stated, “we are able to create a non verbal intervention which is culturally adaptive and accessible to people who are unwilling to talk about their challenges. We found that a lot of innovation is about digitising pre-existing frameworks of therapy. We have challenged ourselves to go beyond this.

“The biggest gap is the impact of trauma or adverse life events versus unmet need in mental health, as this worsens risk of illness. We know that this knowledge has not translated to care pathways and the current types of services do not effectively respond to adverse life events for most people.”

Sanya stressed that we need to hire people who are representative of the person they are dealing with to improve mental health support.

Professor Ann Keen added that in terms of employment and retention, we need to rethink how we employ and how we retain through being kinder to our staff. 

Final Thought: The Hurdles to Overcome 

In conclusion, Melinda Rees shared a final thought about the scalability and adoption of innovation in mental health services in the UK. She said that with the UK open minded about the role these technologies can play in improving mental healthcare, now is the time to think about the three main problems that are affecting their adoption. 

The first is overcoming the thought process in busy clinicians minds; that change is hard. Second, is how schools, workplaces and health services are able to buy new technology at scale. She stressed there is so much to be done in supporting these organisations in their procurement cycles. Finally, the biggest issue is that of the UK’s current regulatory frameworks around technology. She said that until we liberate that barrier to entry we will see technology leaving the UK and going to other countries.

In summary, Preet Gill Kaur, encouraged all participants to feed through any thoughts and ideas, such as the ones today, to MPs to contribute to the current Mental Health Act so that these innovative ideas can impact the reality of mental health provision in the UK.

This event was kindly sponsored by Psyomics and Adagio VR.

Share

Related Topics

Latest

Housing Dilemma: What Type of Housing Do We Need?

Inverness and the Highlands face a pressing housing challenge that affects both the ageing population and essential healthcare workers. Mixed housing options can create sustainable, inclusive communities while addressing affordability and accessibility concerns. By integrating housing policy into local and healthcare planning, we can build a future that supports all generations.

Trump’s Ukraine Deal: What It Means for the UK

Donald Trump’s latest diplomatic manoeuvres have sent shockwaves through Europe. With plans for direct peace talks with Vladimir Putin, the former US president appears willing to push Ukraine into territorial concessions. But what does this mean for the UK? From military strategy to diplomatic alliances, Britain now faces a critical test of its role in European security. With NATO unity at stake and Ukraine’s sovereignty hanging by a thread, the UK must decide whether to step up or risk being sidelined.

Video Features

Health and Social Care Reforms: Facing the Challenges, Building the Future

Revolutionising Healthcare Diagnostics: A Call to Arms

NHS & Life Sciences: Harnessing Innovation For Global Health

Screening and Diagnostics: Advancing the Frontiers of Healthcare

Subscribe to our newsletter for your free digital copy of the journal!

Receive our latest insights, future journals as soon as they are published and get invited to our exclusive events and webinars.

Newsletter Signups
?
?

We respect your privacy and will not share your email address with any third party. Your personal data will be collected and handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Never miss an issue by subcribing to our newsletter!

Receive our latest insights and all future journals as soon as they are published and get invited to our exclusive events and webinars.

Newsletter Signups
?
?

We respect your privacy and will not share your email address with any third party. Your personal data will be collected and handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Never miss an issue by subcribing to our newsletter!

Receive our latest insights and all future journals as soon as they are published and get invited to our exclusive events and webinars.

Newsletter Signups
?
?

We respect your privacy and will not share your email address with any third party. Your personal data will be collected and handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Newsletter Signup

Receive our latest insights as soon as they are published and get invited to our exclusive events and webinars.

Newsletter Signups
?
?

We respect your privacy and will not share your email address with any third party. Your personal data will be collected and handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.