We have all experienced a huge amount of change over the past few months. Change to our daily routines. Change to the way we work. Change to the way we communicate and socialise. And, for some, change to physical and mental health.
While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the world we live in – including how we think, feel and behave – the virus itself will eventually pass and some aspects of our lives will go back to normal. However, some of these changes will (and should) stay with us long term. For example, the uplift in the digital delivery of services, which we expect to play a much larger role in our lives going forward.
As a leading provider of digital health care services in the UK, we have seen referrals to our online-cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) service increase, as more people look to remote therapy delivery options to treat stress and anxiety triggered by these challenging times. Many across the industry, including our clinical team, anticipate that that there will be a surge in mental health conditions in the UK over the coming months, due to ongoing changing circumstances and uncertain outlooks, particularly for people with pre-existing mental health conditions – who are likely to find managing symptoms more difficult than before the virus spread.
A similar trend was identified by survey company Ipsos MORI, which recently found that 62 per cent of Britons surveyed since the outbreak had said they found it harder to stay positive about the future, while 55 per cent found it harder to stay positive day-to-day.
So how do health care providers, such as the NHS, continue to treat the growing number of people with mental health conditions now and into the future, to ensure the virus doesn’t leave a long-term effect on the nation’s mental health?
Changing tides: Going digital and moving to remote health care
With many people confined to homes and unable to get out for face-to-face therapy, and with health care priorities re-focused to manage critical care, normal pathways to mental health care have been disrupted. Service providers, including the NHS, are looking to find ways to enable referral and treatment remotely and quickly. Right now, the NHS is under more pressure than ever to keep services open, up and running, on guidance from the IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) programme, and increase access to digitally enabled treatment.
By enabling remote access to people now grounded at home, digital health care services can reach anyone in any community, connecting people with healthcare professionals, including therapists and psychological wellbeing practitioners (PWPs). For adults with mild to severe anxiety and depression disorders, online CBT, may be the lifesaver they need, particularly in times of change, providing access to anytime, anywhere treatment all from the comfort and safety of their own home.
Our preferred mode of communication with patients is text-based CBT, much like a WhatsApp conversation, delivered through a secure, clinically monitored technology platform. Patients are assigned a high-intensity therapist or well-being practitioner, depending on their needs, and receive one-to-one treatment for mild to severe mental health disorders.
This method of therapy has multiple benefits; it means that therapy sessions can be quality controlled by senior clinical supervisors and ensures that patient progress can be monitored closely. For patients, this method of communication is arguably the most discrete, which is particularly beneficial during the lockdown period with other family members in close proximity. As people struggle to cope with their changing circumstance this can give them a lifeline and provide tools they need to get through each day.
Digital services like these also allow patients to self-refer for therapy access, which significantly helps in times of crisis. In turn, this then reduces the pressures on health care providers, providing more support to programmes such as IPAT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) under the NHS, and resolving the challenges to referral, triage and assessment while the usual patient routes are interrupted.
The new future of digital mental health care: Driving the tide of change.
The forced shift to a more digital world will be one change that we expect will have a lasting, but a positive impact. For example, if digital mental health care delivers in critical times why not continue to use it in future service delivery?
For example, when the Covid-19 pandemic threat subsides, digital mental health interventions can provide numerous benefits above and beyond just treating people at home. Digital mental health care can help reduce waiting lists, while delivering an effective and seamless experience for mental health care patients – convenient, accessible and safe. These services can be mobilised rapidly, ahead of waiting lists becoming excessive, and offers people the added benefit of flexibility and choice in terms of the time and location they receive therapy. Also, by utilising these more modern forms of digital communications, which many people are comfortable and confident with using today, digital mental health care can build bridges between individuals and mental health services, delivering much needed end-to-end care more immediately in times of emergency. People can seek treatment, continue to engage, and can also remain in touch if they need additional support, particularly as circumstances continue to change.
From identifying the condition, to obtaining a specialist referral to therapy itself, digital methods can make a big difference supporting both patients and the practitioners delivering the therapies. With treatments delivered online and via the devices we have at our fingertips, digital mental health care services provide the sustainable answer to release some pressure on our healthcare system, not only today when we, as a country need it most, but moving into the future.
For patients unable to leave the house, not because of isolation but because their mental illness is so crippling, digital mental health care services like online CBT can provide the remote accessibility needed to make depression and anxiety more manageable. The technology enables mental health provision to be geographically dispersed to patients, while helping mitigate the possibility of vulnerable people being left out and not receiving the care they need. Automation can also help practitioners with treatment delivery and access to content. For the health care systems, like the NHS, it can take some of the pressure off, not just during difficult times but all the time.
Digital delivery has a lot to offer. Looking to the future, we can put anonymised therapy data from digital treatment to good use, by using deep learning and natural language processing to gain clinical insights to better understand what works and doesn’t work for whom. This can be used to enhance treatments and allow software and tools to be developed that will help clinicians continually offer support to patients, even in between therapy sessions.
With millions of people expected to suffer as a result of the current Covid-19 crisis, digital delivery will be part of the answer to maintaining the UK’s mental health care system not just now but into our future. It is our hope that by experiencing the benefits of digital therapy that many more people feel comfortable using digital treatments, and that more local NHS services will adopt and retain these technologies as an option to treat people with mental health conditions – we believe digital delivery will be one of the long-lasting positive effects we will see as part of this pandemic.