Innovative Solutions for Mental Health: The Chief Scientists Office Challenge

The Chief Scientists Office (CSO) launched a national open innovation challenge aimed at innovating mental health services in Scotland on 22nd June 2022. 

The aim of this challenge was to develop disruptive innovative solutions that deliver sustainable, accessible, and equitable mental health services, addressing one or more of the following areas:

• Young person’s challenge.

• Hard to reach populations (people with existing mental health conditions and/or people with a co-occurring condition e.g., sensory loss, alcohol, or substance issues).

• Patient centred care pathways.

• Treatment resistant conditions.

• Prioritisation of backlog.

Organisations could apply for a share of £630,000 over a 2-phase competition. Phase 1 was allocated £180,000 for a maximum of 6 projects. Phase 2 was allocated £450,000 for a maximum of 3 projects.

Red Star/ NHS Glasgow

Red Star worked with clinicians from NHS Glasgow to understand what they would like to see from a modern, data-driven clinical system to support mental health services. The team co-designed a solution with users which will provide a modern IT platform, which addresses NHS Scotland Mental Health Services priorities, including streamline pathways for ADHD diagnosis and care by offering a digital first approach addressing the needs of young people, pilot a pathway for ADHD diagnosis, enhance remote monitoring for people with eating disorders, capture of information and digital referrals through asynchronous assessments and triaging, enhance the communication between community mental health, specialist services and GPs, and the digitalisation of information in one system.

Learn more about Red Star: https://redstar.ai/

Voxsio/ NHS Grampian

Voxsio worked with NHS Grampian. Voxsio has created the disruptive digital health app UB-OK to give young people with gastrointestinal functional disorders access to evidence-based psychological therapies and support for their physical symptoms. Bypassing waitlists, UB-OK provides instant support, helping these young people to manage their physical and mental symptoms, creating better health outcomes. Voxsio has worked with young people and NHS clinicians to make UB-OK engaging, useful, and ethical. With colleagues in NHS Grampian, Tayside, Highland, and young people, Voxsio will now run a feasibility study based on the Medical Research Council framework. This study will establish early estimates of the efficacy of UB-OK and, importantly, prove how young people engage with the app.

Learn more about Voxsio: https://voxsio.com/

Wysa/ NHS Lothian

Wysa worked with NHS Lothian. Wysa aims to increase young people’s access to self-management support across Scotland whilst supporting services to receive referrals in a way that captures the voice of the young person and reduces the number of referrals that are rejected, improving services' capacity but most importantly improving the journey for young people. Wysa has launched a trusted AI-enabled mental health app in Northwest Edinburgh for students aged 12-18 years in a pilot study aiming to increase access to psychological self-management tools for young people. Full access to the Wysa platform provided students with a wide range of tools and resources to help address challenges young people often face, such as anxiety, sleep, stress, relationships, body image, and more.

Learn more about Wysa: https://www.wysa.com/