NHSX has begun to work on a project for the digital transformation of young people’s mental health services.
Its digital transformation team is working with the children and young people’s mental health and digital mental health teams at NHS England and Improvement, and is looking for private sector support in the next stage of the project due to begin next month.
The market notice says the work is being done in line with a feature of the NHS Long Term Plan to improve access to mental health support for people aged 25 and under, and as part of the broader ambition to make digitally enabled care ubiquitous across the NHS.
Discovery and alpha projects have taken place, with the next step being to develop a support model for NHS trusts and the adoption of necessary improvements identified in the earlier stages.
Prime users
The notice says the prime users of a service would be staff at local, regional and national levels involved in delivering digital service transformation projects for young people’s mental health services.
Among the priorities are to develop user centred design approaches, deliver a targeted support and coaching package, provide recommendations for a sustainable support offer, and to develop a digital transformation roadmap to support future decisions in the area.
One of the main issues, highlighted in the discovery document, is that the average waiting time for first assessment is nine weeks and that for treatment is 13 weeks.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
