Internet-enabled cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) provider, Ieso Digital Health is providing a new online therapy service to NHS patients with mild to moderate mental health conditions.
After officially launching its low intensity ‘step two’ CBT service in September, it rolled out a beta trial across a number of NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).
Patients receive treatment remotely via the company’s ThinkWell™ platform, which uses secure real-time messaging to provide confidential therapy and can be easily embedded into any NHS Trust’s mental healthcare offerings.
Ieso has also recruited psychological wellbeing practitioners (PWPs) and established a learning and development hub that will support staff and provide ongoing training. It has now started allocating patients to PWPs and carrying out initial therapy sessions.
The firm will take its trial into more CCGs over the coming weeks, with the full service being available nationwide from January 2020.
WHY IT MATTERS
Currently, Ieso provides high intensity ‘step three’ CBT to 74 NHS CCGs across England and Scotland as part of the Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, but 76.6% of the 1.6m mental healthcare patients referred to the service require step two primary care.
Through offering the new step two service, Ieso aims to reduce waiting lists and deliver “an effective and seamless experience” for NHS mental healthcare patients, a press release said.
THE LARGER CONTEXT
Ieso has conducted 213,000 therapy hours, treated more than 50,000 patients in England and employs a network of more than 600 therapists.
Meanwhile, mHabitat founder and director and HIMSS UK Advisory Council member, Victoria Betton, recenty told Healthcare IT News about the many benefits of using digital tools to help improve people's mental well-being, which include anonymity and remote access.
ON THE RECORD
Alex Kühne, senior product manager at Ieso Digital Health, said: "After more than 18 months of planning and development it’s exciting to have launched our new Step two online CBT service and see our first patients being treated by our ever-growing network of affiliate PWPs.
“With over three quarters of IAPT patients starting with Step 2 treatment and more than half (51.2%) then going from step two to step three therapy, our new service has been well received by our current NHS partners, particularly as it will enable patients to easily transition between treatments when required.
“Due to our extensive experience providing step three therapy, we can provide much needed end-to-end care to address step two conditions, such as mild to moderate depression and generalised anxiety disorder, by quickly assigning patients to a PWP within a few days of referral. This will help reduce long waiting lists. We’re already in talks to bring more NHS CCGs on-board so together we can get more people back to good health.”
