ELFT Pioneers a New Digital Solution to Improve Safety and Access to Mental Health Care

The Trust is making it quicker, easier and safer for its most vulnerable patients to access acute mental health care by digitising the key forms and processes that clinicians must complete to progress treatment which patients receive under the Mental Health Act (MHA).

In a trailblazing partnership with health tech provider Thalamos, ELFT is rolling out a platform which will enable patients to access essential treatment more quickly, and save clinicians time on admin so that they can spend it providing direct care to patients.

More than 1,000 clinicians and staff across the Trust will be able to use the Thalamos platform to create, complete and share key MHA forms. The system will prompt staff to ensure that all necessary information is entered before forms are sent, reducing the risk of delays caused by incomplete, lost or damaged paper forms. Thalamos will also enable secure, encrypted sharing that will help maintain legal compliance, safeguard patient confidentiality, and sustain consistently high standards of patient safety.

David Bridle, Chief Medical Officer, said:  

“With a considerable rise in demand for acute mental health care over the past few years, it is more crucial than ever for services to adapt and evolve. By embracing digital transformation, we have the power to improve outcomes, care quality and speed up access to treatment. 

This involves removing any potential barriers to treatment and making care pathways easier to navigate. For our practitioners, it’s about introducing systems that enable them to spend more time with their service users. And for our service users, it’s optimising pathways to ensure safer, quicker access to quality care.” 

ELFT plans to introduce the new system teams in a phased approach as they transition to using the new system. The system went live first on our inpatient wards on 27 June.

These improvements come as the government works on reforms to the Mental Health Act designed to further improve both access to and quality of care. ELFT are leading the charge of NHS trusts in London toward improved acute mental health care through such digital innovation.

Links to videos: https://www.elft.nhs.uk/health-professionals/mental-health-law/thalamos-mental-health-act