Technology can be a safety net for mental health
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Version 0 of 1. I am normally woken very early as I have young children, so I use the bright start to kick-off my working day with a cup of tea and catch-up with overnight activity from our national network of psychotherapists, who provide online cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) sessions. As clinical lead of Ieso Digital Health I need to check our online sessions have been running smoothly, as some of my team hold late evening consultations to suit patient’s schedules. Most days I arrive at the office earlier than my colleagues to work on writing reports or developing training while the office is quiet. I then head into a team meeting, in which we discuss priorities and our expansion plans aimed at taking talking therapies online into new areas. I’ll then meet with my in-house team of psychotherapists who help me line-manage our network of CBT therapists around the country. I’m passionate about widening access to evidence based psychotherapies. Throughout my 25 years as a clinician and university lecturer I’ve worked hard to look at innovative ways we can provide mental health treatment and reduce suffering. I am also a strong advocate of the role technology can play to widen access to mental health services, and the role it plays in enhancing learning. We hear a lot about how the rise of technology use, such as smartphones, is harming our mental health, but I believe the same technology can be a real safety net too. We predominantly provide cognitive behavioural therapy online using written communication. The therapist and patient work together collaboratively in a secure portal therapy room. Appointments are held in real-time and are very structured to ensure the patient can work towards their therapy goals. Our therapists are all accredited by the British Association of Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapies (BABCP). They can treat anywhere between one to 10 patients at any time, with each session lasting around an hour. Patients are then given homework or lessons to complete during the week before their next session. If patients have questions or need some added support between consultations, the therapist is available at the touch of a button. Therefore, a key part of my role is to make sure that each therapist’s workload is manageable. The other major part of my role is to ensure quality of consultations, which is much easier to do in an online environment as I can see copies of all the written consultations, unlike face-to-face therapy which takes place behind closed doors and is therefore much more difficult to monitor. Each lunchtime the whole office comes together to eat – we all love food and each bring a dish in most days to share. It’s a friendly and nurturing environment to work in so it’s nice to take some time to get to know each other. We have started holding mindfulness meditation sessions during the break and, as our office is based in the countryside, we’ll go for a mindful stroll after lunch before returning to our desks. I often travel to meetings around the UK in the afternoons with people such as GPs, therapists or clinical commissioning group (CCG) managers who are interested in learning how our model can be integrated with their services. Our service is already available across 26 NHS CCGs and this number is continuing to expand, so part of my job is to spread the word and discuss our research which shows how effective our treatment can be for treating mild to severe mental health issues at a fraction of the cost of traditional therapy services. After the school run towards the end of the day I’ll often continue working, supervising some of the evening sessions of our therapists over the internet from home. I’m on call during the evening as well so I may speak with therapists who are having problem patients, or may speak to patients who are distressed. What really makes my day is receiving great feedback from patients who feel they have really benefitted from our service. Recently, one of our patients wrote to say they had just completed their fifth session with us after plucking up the courage to converse with one of our therapists online. They’d previously been too nervous about speaking to someone in person to seek treatment. It’s comments like these that really make me feel focused on my mission to expand mental health access more widely using technology. Join our network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views. |