Mind & Body featured in NHSX’s digital playbook

Read our reflections on Mind & Body’s mental health screening tool working remotely in outpatient clinics, now recognised by NHSX as an exemplar use of digital technology in healthcare.

More than 30% of people with a long-term physical health condition also have a mental health condition. Physical and mental health problems often go hand in hand, leading to challenges for the individual and those around them, resulting in poorer health outcomes as well as increased healthcare costs. However, people living with multiple health conditions often receive care in a fragmented way that is split between the mind and the body.

The King's Health Partners’ Mind & Body programme is committed to joining up mental and physical healthcare, training and research to improve health outcomes for our patients and service users. One of our Mind & Body programme’s key projects is Integrating Mental & Physical healthcare: Research, Training & Services (IMPARTS). The project seeks to bridge the gap between mental and physical healthcare in healthcare settings through education and training, developing care pathways, sharing self-help materials, and asking patients questions relating to their wellbeing, smoking, depression, and anxiety through a screening tool. Patients’ answers are collated, instantly uploaded to their electronic health record and used by clinicians to help inform their care pathways.

NHSX Digital playbooks showcase digital ways of working to improve outcomes for patients. Featured in a recent NHSX digital playbook, IMPARTS is described as “a proactive identification and assessment tool that can be used to collect tailored patient-reported outcomes data.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased number of remote consultations, in the summer of 2020 IMPARTS expanded its reach and allowed remote access to the screening tool. Now patients can access the IMPARTS screening on their personal devices, up to 24 hours before their consultation via a link in their appointment reminder text message. This means patients have more time to complete the survey and now have the option to complete it in the comfort of their own home.

From June 2020-2021:

• Approximately 6,996 IMPARTS screenings were completed remotely.
• 6,636 people from 151 countries took part in our Integrating Care: Depression, Anxiety and Physical Illness training. The training helps your understanding of the connection between physical and mental health and improve your ability to identify symptoms and sources of help.
• 56 clinics across King’s Health Partners are using remote IMPARTS screening.

The NHSX digital playbook shares the following highlights on IMPARTS screening tool:

• By allowing clinicians to focus on the key findings and recommendations from IMPARTS questionnaires, they have been able to maximise consultation time with patients.
• Involving the IT department from an early stage of the project has ensured successful integration between IMPARTS and the Trust’s electronic patient record.
• Aligning IMPARTS recommendations with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance and suggested referral pathways is key but must not replace clinical judgment.
• The tool supports identifying patients’ wider bio-psycho-social support needs.
• The tool has helped enable joined-up mind and body care.

Prof Matthew Hotopf, CBE FRCPsych, FMedSci; Vice Dean of Research, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, Director, National Institute for Health Research Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre, said:

IMPARTS is a pioneering initiative developed by King’s Health Partners. By treating the whole person, the overall health outcomes for many of these patients can be improved.

So many health risk factors are preventable, but you can only do something about them if you know what needs to change. IMPARTS has helped us develop an integrated approach to patient care.

Read NHSX’s Digital playbook.

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