After months of rigorous competition, Bath-based software house Mayden has been awarded significant second-phase funding from the 2014 Small Business Research Initiative for Healthcare (SBRI Healthcare) bid, to develop a solution that will relieve the mounting pressure faced by the UK’s mental health services.
Current demand for mental health care vastly exceeds NHS resources, and this gap is set to continue to increase; it’s estimated that by 2030 there will be around 2 million more adults in the UK suffering with mental health problems.
Currently, 10% of the country’s population is thought to be suffering from a mental health condition such as anxiety and depression which would benefit from psychological therapy, and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services have the capacity to meet just fifteen percent of that demand. Of those referred, one in ten waits over a year for treatment, while around 75% do not receive treatment at all. In a recent survey of patients waiting for treatment, 67% deteriorated, 40% harmed themselves, and one in six attempted to take their own life.
Used appropriately, online therapies can ease this considerable unmet demand for therapeutic intervention to treat mental illness.
As experts in technology and healthcare innovation, Mayden is uniquely positioned to offer such a solution, and as a result of their winning SBRI Healthcare bid, will develop and launch an online hub enabling IAPT services to easily prescribe, review, select and book proven, cost-effective online treatment for patients, from live therapy sessions by video link to self-guided CBT programs and apps, and to track patient progress during their use of these online therapies.
With IAPTus – the patient management system from Mayden which is already used by 70% of the UK’s IAPT services—as its linchpin, the online hub will help IAPT services to meet demand by providing more patient choice, allowing more patients to be treated, enabling joined up care and reducing waiting times, all without deterioration in patient outcomes.
“This funding represents the beginning of a sea-change in mental health services,” said Mayden’s Managing Director, Chris May. “We are thrilled to be driving forward a solution to the mounting pressure felt by our clients within the IAPT services, and for the opportunity to connect struggling individuals with the help they need.”
Small Business Research Initiative for Healthcare (SBRI Healthcare) is an NHS England initiative, championed by the newly formed Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), who aim to promote UK economic growth whilst addressing unmet health needs and enhancing the take up of known best practice. The SBRI Healthcare programme sets industry the challenge in a series of health related competitions which result in fully funded development contracts between the awarded company and the NHS.
About Mayden
Mayden is driven by a desire to change the way healthcare services are delivered by staff and experienced by patients. Today, a Mayden system is used in almost every NHS Trust in the country.
With over 10 years experience specialising in innovative, flexible cloud-based solutions for healthcare industries, Mayden are perhaps best known for IAPTus, the patient management system used by 70% of the UK’s adult IAPT services.
For further details please contact michele.rees-jones@mayden.co.uk or becca.astrop@mayden.co.uk.
