The Welsh government has awarded £17 million to Betsi Cadwaladr (BCUHB) and Cwm Taf Morgannwg (CTMUHB) University Health Boards following successful business cases for digitising mental health services patient record systems. The selection of a provider, in principle, is expected by the end of the financial year.
BCUHB will receive over £12m, with CTMUHB also receiving £5m, with the five-year funding packages reportedly “partly conditional on meeting project targets”. It is hoped that the project will support continuity of care for patients, speed up referrals, allow more time to care and help “eliminate errors which can occur within paper recording systems”.
Carol Shillabeer, CEO of BCUHB, noted that the resulting record and patient management system would be a “significant step forward” in how the board approaches the storage and retrieval of patient information, commenting: “I’m very grateful to the Welsh Government for their support and their funding for this project, which is one of many digital projects in development and planned for our future across North Wales. I’m also pleased that we will be working in close collaboration with Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board in taking this forward.”
Chief executive of CTMUHB, Paul Mears, also highlighted the benefits the investment would offer for patients and staff, adding: “This collaborative development with our organisation working in partnership with Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is a great opportunity for our health boards to work together, for us to share learning and ultimately improve the quality of care for our patients. This is an important milestone for CTMUHB in our journey to deploy digital technology to make services more efficient and accessible, and to enable our staff to improve the care we provide to our patients.”
Digital in supporting mental health services
NHS England 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.
Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust has awarded a contract worth £572,000 to DrDoctor for the provision of a patient engagement portal. In a contract award notice, the trust shared details of the contract award, described as the “provision of services for patient engagement tools, consumables, transformation services”, made by direct award via G-Cloud 14 Lot 2 “after pre-established internal requirements were entered into the digital marketplace”.
SBRI Healthcare and the Health Innovation Network have awarded more than £1.7m to nine digital innovation projects designed to offer workplace support for individuals with poor mental health.
