Beginning in October, we will begin rolling out our eMHA software to six Mental Health Trusts in London – with East London NHS Foundation Trust first up.

It will be a big moment for us, having spent a number of years working with a large number of stakeholders to get to the point we are now. This kind of system change does not happen overnight and we’re really grateful for the collaborative way our new customers have worked with us to make sure every scenario and process has been considered.

The implementation of eMHA will transform how mental health assessments are conducted across these trusts. Traditionally, these assessments have relied on paper-based processes, which can be time-consuming and prone to errors. The transition to a digital system addresses these issues by offering a more efficient, reliable, and user-friendly system.

This programme is delivered in partnership with OneLondon, an organisation dedicated to improving health and care through better use of data. OneLondon’s expertise in data integration and interoperability will ensure that eMHA seamlessly fits into the existing digital infrastructure of the NHS trusts.

Digital-led change

For those who don’t know, the Thalamos eMHA product is designed to reduce administrative burdens on healthcare professionals, increase the accuracy and accessibility of patient records and, ultimately, support better patient outcomes. The product integrates various features such as electronic forms, digital signatures, and secure data storage – all compliant with NHS standards and regulations.

There are two main reasons we’re so excited about what we think the OneLondon and Thalamos eMHA programme will achieve. The first is how dramatically we think it will transform patient care in the capital. London represents a real test in terms of how our product can bring together both multiple trusts and ICBs to support patients who might present in one area, get admitted in another and receive discharge support in another. 

Patient choice and autonomy are core tenants of better care for mental health patients and are directly cited in the recent government commitment to reform the Mental Health Act. However, frontline professionals need greater support in their efforts to balance the administrative burden that greater patient choice and autonomy could impinge with the want to continually provide better patient outcomes.

In our efforts to support a swifter, simpler and safer Mental Health Act, we know that freeing frontline professionals up to focus on patient care can significantly improve patient experience. Some 36,400 nursing shifts could be created every year by eradicating manual scanning of documents within NHS mental health environments. Imagine what the system-wide impact looks like.

Built by patients, for patients

We’ve designed and built eMHA by prioritising, over anything else, the consulting of people with lived experience. Our Responsible Innovation Group, made up of individuals with years of lived experience, clinical and mental health law knowledge, leave no stone untouched when scrutinising our product roadmap.

The other reason we are so excited is the potential the London programme has to direct real, long-lasting change. By digitising the way patients are receive care under the Mental Health Act, we can bring together vast data sets that will shine a light on areas of friction, operational inefficiencies and, potentially, issues that represent a threat to safe patient care.

We’ve built data dashboards that put vitally important system-level data into the hands of our customers. They’ll be utilising insights that have either never been accessible before or would have taken days, weeks or months to aggregate and condense.

Alongside our foundational vision and mission to deliver a digital care pathway for mental health and digitise the Mental Health Act for all pathways and all users, we are also getting closer to a big internal goal of delivering national insights into the application of the MHA. By understanding, on a truly national basis, how mental health pathways do and don’t work we believe Thalamos can produce long-lasting impact that will let us stand back in years to come and say, yes, we really did help create better patient outcomes.