Update on technologies, medicines and treatments

Abstract

From the beginning of November, General Practitioner (GP)s are able to offer people with common mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety and mild-to-moderate depression, a digital tool to support them while they await referral to mental health services such as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).Wysa Premium is an Artificial Intelligence (AI)enabled mental health app which has been approved by the National Health Service (NHS). The app is clinically safe, adhering to strict Digital Technology Assessment Criteria (DTAC), ensuring that it meets NHS and social care clinical safety, data protection, technical security, interoperability and usability and accessibility standards. Access to the app is via a mobile phone or tablet.The app provides an 'emotionally intelligent' service which responds to the emotions you express and uses evidence-based cognitive-behavioural techniques such as meditation, breathing, yoga, motivational interviewing and micro-actions to help you build mental resilience skills and feel better. It was developed by a team of 15 people, consisting of psychologists, designers, developers, and over 500,000 users to understand how AI chat can help us learn skills to build emotional resilience. Wysa has already been rolled out across a number of NHS IAPT and CAMHS talking therapy services.