Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BCHFT) has noted its intention to award a contract with a value of £30,000 to WYSA LTD for the provision of a digital service to support children and young people with mental health and wellbeing.
Services supplied under the contract will help toward the “getting help” element of the trust’s “I Thrive” model, it states, based on the identified needs of children and young people across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton.
More than 150 evidence-based exercises are supported by the service with exercises and videos, covering thought reframing, relaxation techniques, behavioural activation, anxiety, and low mood.
The contract is to be awarded via Direct Award Process C, on criteria that the existing provider is likely to continue to satisfy the proposed contract to a “sufficient standard”. The decision makers, according to BCHFT, are the commissioning managers for CAMHS services.
Starting on April 1 2026, the contract is set to run for a total of six months, with the option of a further six-month extension.
Wider trend: Digital mental health
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.
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.
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.
