In its latest meeting, the board of South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust highlighted digital in supporting mental health pathways, including the use of ambient voice technology in giving back time to care, and virtual reality for children and young people’s emotional wellbeing.
Ambient voice technology will be piloted for admin work, it shares, and automated information sharing will let schools check in and consider support options for children from their setting. A pilot of extended reality as an intervention for young people presenting with anxiety or emotion-related school avoidance is continuing, and the trust is now focusing on improvements following the digitisation of neurodevelopmental screening processes.
Elsewhere, a digitised solution for ADHD screening has been implemented, the trust states, which has been seen to reduce administrative burden. Virtual reality interventions for psychosis are also in use. Looking ahead, the plan is to roll out successful AI pilots such as AVT and Copilot to target areas of “greatest operational pressure and opportunity to improve access”, including predictive analytics and AI training.
Presenting its revised trust strategy for 2026/27 – 2030/31, the trust makes commitments to digital infrastructure, automation and AI, and insight-driven improvements using dashboards and analytics. Citing “growing experience” in automation and decision-support technologies, it outlines future focuses on digital culture, integrating systems, improving workforce digital literacy, and digital inclusion. AI will be used to support earlier intervention and for predictive insights, it continues, and digital access will be expanded to appointments, communication, and health records to allow for greater involvement and autonomy around care.
“Innovation will play a major role in transforming care, from evaluating new digital approaches and AI‑enabled tools, to incubating ideas through academic and clinical partnerships, to redesigning services around predictive analytics and quality improvement,” the trust explains. “By fostering a culture where staff feel confident to test ideas, learn from change and share what works, we will make research and innovation part of day‑to‑day practice.”
Wider trend: Digital mental health
The government has launched a call for evidence to inform the development and implementation of a new mental health strategy for England as the next phase in the 10-Year Health Plan programme of reform. “This review, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy, will make recommendations on how we can shift from a mental health system that responds late and through diagnosis, to one that responds earlier, more proportionately and with improving participation in education and work in mind,” the government states. Practical examples and implementation evidence are being sought to inform a new strategic approach to mental health and implement improvements to outcomes across the life course. Feedback is also welcomed on maximising the impact of existing policies such as community-based mental health services.
NHS England has shared that 50,000 eligible adults living with bipolar, schizophrenia, psychosis, or major depression in England and Wales have been invited to the “world’s largest” mental health study looking to promote personalised treatment for severe mental illness. The GlobalMinds study, led by mental health data science company Akrivia Health Ltd in partnership with Cardiff University, will last for three years, and will ultimately expand to include participants from other countries. Detailed questionnaires will be sent out for participants to complete online, seeking to understand what can increase the risk or severity of serious mental health conditions. Information will also be taken from participants’ NHS medical records, allowing for links to be made between genes, background, biology, and mental health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published three recommendations on the use of AI in mental health and wellbeing, developed during an online workshop event bringing together more than 30 international experts in AI, mental health, ethics, and public policy. Generative AI should be recognised as a public mental health concern, the first recommendation advises, “with commensurate responses across government, health systems, and industry that address all generative AI solutions, not only those intended for mental health”.
