A University of Manchester led national initiative aims to connect people with lived experience, industry, researchers and the NHS to transform mental health innovation across the UK.
The Mental Health Digital Innovation (MHDI) workstream has been launched as one arm of the UK Government’s Mental Health Goals Programme as a new national initiative designed to accelerate the infrastructure and development to support adoption of digital technologies that improve mental health outcomes across the UK.
Despite rapid advances in digital technologies, many promising mental health tools struggle to move beyond pilot projects and achieve widespread adoption. Fragmented infrastructure, complex procurement processes, lack of demand signalling, unclear reimbursement pathways and limited coordination between stakeholders have created significant barriers to innovation reaching patients and services at scale. MHDI has been established to build practical pathways that help digital innovations move from development and evaluation into routine care.
MHDI brings together people with lived experience of mental health problems, clinicians, industry partners, innovators, researchers and investors to create a more connected and effective ecosystem for digital mental health innovation.
The MHDI workstream is being led by the University of Manchester, with workstream leads Professor Pauline Whelan (University of Manchester, CareLoop Health Ltd) and Dr Trina Histon (Director of Percolating Health) who will work closely with partners: Health Innovation Kent Surrey Sussex
