Transforming severe mental illness care through digital innovation in the South West – CareLoop
Health Innovation South West brings together NHS providers and CareLoop’s digital therapeutic platform in a pilot that aims to predict and reduce relapse, improve self-management and significantly improve mental health care for people living with severe mental illness across the South West Peninsula.
Impact
- 105 patients expected to be involved in pilot.
- Decreased psychosis relapse. Prevention of severe mental illness (SMI) relapse.
- Reduced hospital admissions. Timely interventions that reduce emergency care reliance and hospital admissions.
- Increased system productivity. Improved identification of Early Warning Symptoms of deterioration through reliable and more extensive individual-specific information.
- Improved preventative care. Staff can access to real-time symptoms and insight to help identify early warning signs and prevent deterioration.
- Improved patient engagement and quality of life. The use of a digital Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for psychosis (CBTp) tool empowers patients, improving their engagement and health outcomes.
Project summary
The CareLoop project aims to use a smart phone based digital therapeutic (DTx) platform to predict and prevent relapse, reduce hospital admissions and provide early support for people living with severe mental illness (SMI) such as psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Prescribed by clinicians, patients gain remote tools for self-management through predictive CBTp, while clinicians receive real-time symptom data to identify early warning signs and intervene early. This approach prevents relapse, reduces emergency admissions, and relieves system pressure.
The project supports national digital health priorities and offers a model for reducing relapse and improving mental health care in rural & coastal regions, and across the NHS.
Health Innovation South West is leading a real-world evaluation of the CareLoop project, assessing its impact on relapse prevention, hospital admissions, NHS cost savings and self-management in the community. The pilot is expected to involve 105 patients.
Rationale
Psychosis affects 1 in 100 people, with a high risk of debilitating relapse, especially in under-resourced rural areas like the South West.
Long travel distances and high costs to access primary and secondary care mean that many residents are without specialist mental health services. In the Peninsula, 28% of people and 51% in Cornwall & Isles of Scilly, live more than 20km from an Emergency Department, leading to a heavy reliance on crisis care. Long wait times for therapy, limited access to care and challenges detecting early warning signs of deterioration, further compound the problem, placing enormous strain on services.
Key stakeholders
- Health Innovation South West is leading the real-world evaluation of the project, providing implementation support to participating NHS providers, and driving regional scale-up.
- CareLoop Health is the developer and provider of the DTx platform, offering predictive CBT for psychosis and real-time symptom monitoring, partnering with Health Innovation South West and NHS providers to implement the technology and support the training and on boarding of patients and staff.
- Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is one of the first NHS Trusts piloting the CareLoop platform engaging clinic teams in patient onboarding and app use, and providing local data and feedback for evaluation.
- Devon Partnership NHS Trust (DPT) is a pilot site for the technology, implementing the innovation through Peer Support workers, supporting training, patient engagement and clinical adoption whilst providing feedback to inform best practice and scale-up.
- LiveWell Southwest is a participating NHS provider delivering services in Plymouth and surrounding areas, trialling CareLoop with mental health teams and patients, and contributing to data collection and evaluation.
- NHSE Regional Team provided the initial funding support of £100,000 with SBRI Healthcare a major funder providing £488,000.
Next steps
The project is in its delivery and evaluation phase, with patient onboarding underway across participating NHS providers.
Peer Support workers and clinical teams will continue to receive training and support to embed the CareLoop tool into routine care.
Health Innovation South West will monitor data on uptake, engagement and relapse indicators, while working closely with CareLoop and NHS providers to refine implementation.
Insights from this phase will inform regional scale-up and support wider adoption across the NHS aligning with national digital transformation goals in mental health care.
I don’t believe we could feel more supported than we do working with Health Innovation South West. We benefit from the team’s local connections and in-depth knowledge as well as their extensive commercial experience and commissioning networks. Our contacts at Health Innovation South West proactively sought out opportunities and helped solve challenges to help achieve our shared goal. What became clear early on is that we weren’t working with just our champion, and that the whole team had bought into the project and are willing to lobby on our behalf in regional and national forums.
Zoe Blake, CEO, CareLoop
