NHSX and Mental Health Update 1

This is an informal update to NHSX’s commitment to;

Digital and data specialists from NHSX will team up with NHS England’s mental health national policy teams to help clinicians and policymakers improve patient experience through technology.

This is a selection of things that happened (other things also happened) from team members working in the mental health space…

Openness

A snippet from NHSX’s culture and values is that “we work openly”. In that spirit this is the first edition of the team’s (for now) weekly update. If you aren’t aware of weeknotes, there is a big community out there and I implore you to go read others.

Discovery preparations

A lot of this week has been dedicated to making sure we are picking a valuable area to invest our time in. The squad has every intention to help solve a meaningful problem and to do so we must prioritise and scope the right shaped problem/outcome to explore.

As a team that embraces feedback, this week we’ve been asking extremely kind colleagues from around health and care and those representing the voice of patients to give feedback on plans/areas of interest to look into. I’m blown away by the response and have been rifling through each and every submission. Some are being added into our prioritisation session next week and will try to squeeze every bit of value out of what people have told us.

We’re thinking of writing a blog post about our prioritisation efforts so watch this space for more info about this…

Capability

One of the other big aspirations of having NHSX people entwined with NHSE colleagues is to expose alternative ways of working and build capability. To make things sustainable it’s super important that people know what is happening, why it’s happening and hopefully one day be able to replicate it if they deem it appropriate.

In relation to those efforts a few NHSX-ers got together and thought if there was anyway we could offer more chances of L&D/capability for NHSE partners. We’re continually exposing alternative ways of working, we are also signed up to do lunch and learns but there are other avenues we can explore. Like offering reverse mentoring or access to things like digital academies. Early days of thinking but joining dots and we’ll see what we can get off the ground in coordination with NHSX’s legendary capability lead.

Meeting people

Lots of chats with smart, interesting people. Some might be joining the gang that we are forming. Some have been working in the digital/mental health space for a while. All very informative.

Shout out to learning about the Youth Voice Summit back in May that had young people helping to run the show and having a voice how the NHS cares for children and young people.

Recruitment

We are/will be recruiting for certain roles! If you are interested in mental health and digital you should apply!!

Reform report into using data-driven technology to transform mental healthcare

Reform published a report into tech and mental health which is worth a read. Also shout out to Nominet’s recent report which was worth delving into.

Finding a place to sit

We’re getting a team together to run a discovery but having the right space conducive to collaborative work is important. We’ve been hustling for space for a few weeks now and have a new plan this week to get it moving. I’m an optimist that we’ll get mostly what we need, I hope this also includes a window to the outside world! Will update more after we do some more exploring in our new building for possible options.

Find out more

If you want to stay informed about wider NHSX work then check out @NHSX on Twitter.