Insights from Mental Health Digital Innovation's inaugural International Advisory Board meeting
In July, the MHDI workstream held its first inaugural International Advisory Board (IAB) meeting as part of the Mental Health Goals Programme. We were delighted to welcome our esteemed IAB members together, which gave us the opportunity to establish connections with people who will provide invaluable advice and perspectives over the lifetime of the programme.
Our IAB members bring broad international perspectives covering digital mental health, lived experience, industry, academia, investment, policy and implementation science. Combined, they have a wealth of knowledge and expertise that equips them to challenge our vision and to share experiences from their own unique perspectives. We hope to learn from their successes as well as hearing about when things haven’t gone to plan.
The day started with an overview of the wider national Mental Health Goals (MHG) Programme and how we want to engage with industry through a presentation from MHG Co-Chair Prof Kathryn Abel. Our Co-Leads Prof Pauline Whelan and Dr Trina Histon covered progress made on the Digital Workstream to date.
Charlotte Stockton-Powdrell provided a deep dive into the Digital Navigator programme - an initiative to provide supported roll-out of digital mental health technologies across the UK, by adding capacity to clinical teams and supporting service users.
Dr Victoria Betton and Becca Randell from Health Innovation Kent, Sussex and Surrey shared details of their work understanding approaches to implementing digital mental health technologies. Their key learnings so far are about innovations needing to be embedded into pathways rather than being separate tools.
We wrapped up the morning by hearing from Dr Aaron Kandola from MindTech Bridge about the Collaborative Model as a way to bring together others working in digital mental health in the UK to strategically bridge the gaps between adoption, commercialisation and scaling of mental health technologies.
The afternoon session was when the IAB members really started to get to work. We wanted to glean their expert advice across important topics within the digital workstream, such as AI, regulation, funding, lived experience and what makes for successful scaling.
The IAB members were all keen to contribute and to share their own experiences. Some of the greatest value came from the different perspectives that were shared, which will help us to think about things differently.
Key messages from the IAB meeting:
Scaling depends on services and implementation, not technology alone
Focus on adoption rather than endless pilots
Lived experience must move from consultation to partnership
Digital Navigators represent a valuable implementation model
Sustainable business models require a clear value proposition
Evidence must extend beyond traditional clinical outcomes
AI should augment, not replace, human care
Data infrastructure is a major UK competitive advantage
At the end of the day, and after lots of insightful and passionate discussion, the leadership team felt full of energy and enthusiasm about the Mental Health Digital Innovation workstream and how we will work together to align the needs of people with lived experience, industry, academia, and the NHS to drive the implementation and sustainability of safe and effective digital mental health technologies.
Comments