8 NOVEMEBER 2023IN MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONIN MY OPINIONMedtech has the potential to improve mental value. In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) and the population it serves benefit from more accurate and earlier diagnoses, and more effective treatments. As digital services are increasingly interwoven into our daily lives, the people we serve expect the same seamless service in their touch points in the NHS mental health services. This article explores four ways that Medtech is currently being developed in the delivery of Mental Health services and areas of opportunity for the future.Firstly, at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, we are leading the research with Virtual Reality (VR) for the treatment of people with agoraphobia and psychosis. For example, VR treatment targets the intense anxiety that keeps many people with psychosis from participating in everyday activities. These fears can lead to functional disability, which means people avoid leaving the home, severely disrupting relationships with family and friends, their education, and their working lives. In Professor Daniel Freeman's, `gameChange' research program, a virtual therapist guides the patient through the program. So, it can be delivered in a variety of settings, including patients' homes. The results published in the Lancet Psychiatry show significant reductions in the avoidance of everyday situations and distress. These patients experienced large and sustainable benefits ­ for example, being able to undertake activities they had previously found unthinkable and were maintained at the six-month follow-up.Secondly, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust's Biomedical Research Centre received an Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award in 2021, the first mental health project to do so. Dr. Dan Joyce, one of the CHRONOS project leads described it as a system approach to decrease the intrinsic biases from machine learning, by developing digital tools for clinicians in secondary mental health care to rapidly identify the most appropriate Technology for Treatment and Prevention of Mental IllnessBy Dr. Karl Marlowe, Consultant Psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer, Oxford Health NHS Foundation TrustDr. Karl Marlowe
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