Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has announced a contract award of £102,000 for a one-year deal to London-based Dr Julian Medical Group Ltd for Talking Therapies third party provision.
The notice shares that the trust required an “innovative, efficient, and effective solution to support and enhance the delivery of Talking Therapies and associated Psychology services (Step 2, Step 3 and Step 3+)”, which would also offer “flexibility and responsiveness to changing needs and demands of the services and patients”.
According to the award, the procurement is intended specifically to add capacity for Talking Therapies Step 2, 3 and 3+ therapy.
The trust also recently shared plans to procure an electronic prescribing and medicines administration solution, with a specification that the solution will be cloud-based and suitable for use within all care settings. According to a prior information notice, the selected supplier will be required to work as a strategic partner alongside the trust to “develop and innovate” the product, with particular focus on developing interoperability between external systems.
A prior information notice was also published earlier this year detailing the trust’s intention to procure a patient engagement portal solution, with a budget of £800,000. It comes as part of the trust’s efforts to increase its digital maturity, in which a PEP has been highlighted as a “key deliverable”. As such, the trust is looking for a solution that can interoperate with multiple electronic patient record solutions, with the notice outlining a number of essential requirements.
Digital mental health
Cambridgeshire & Peterborough ICS has announced that its shared care record now shares five types of key mental health documents, to help provide instant access to more detailed mental health information. The five documents being shared are: care plans; crisis plans; diagnosis extracts; risk assessment; mental health act notices. Each one accessible through the person summary dashboard within the shared care record, with the aim to give health and social care staff access to this type of information for the first time through the record.
New guidance has been published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, focusing on developing safeguards, regulation and evaluation for UK digital mental health technologies including mental health apps, AI-powered assessments, and virtual reality therapy.
NHS England also recently published eight principles for the “appropriate use” of digital technologies in mental health settings, aiming to provide a guide for procurement, implementation, data protection, policy, staff training and recording in patient care and treatment plans.
NHS Humber and North Yorkshire ICB has awarded a contract to the digital mental wellness programme myHappymind, an online educational resource aimed at supporting children and young people with their mental health and wellbeing. The procurement of the myHappymind platform aims to provide children aged 3-11 with “interactive and pre-prepared lessons” delivered by primary school teachers.
