SBRI: Mental Health Innovation Challenge (NHS Scotland)

The aim of this competition is to develop disruptive innovative solutions that deliver sustainable, accessible and equitable mental health services, addressing any of: young people, hard to reach populations, patient centred care pathways, treatment resistant conditions, or prioritisation of backlog.

Opportunity Details

When

Registration Opens

22/06/2022

Registration Closes

17/08/2022

Award

Phase 1 is allocated 180,000 GBP for a maximum of 6 projects. Phase 1 projects can range in size up to total costs of 30,000 GBP inclusive of VAT.

Organisation

NHS Scotland

Share this opportunity

Organisations can apply for a share of up to £630,000 across two phases.

The aim of this competition is to develop disruptive innovative solutions that deliver sustainable, accessible and equitable mental health services, addressing one or more of the following areas:

  • Young persons challenge
  • Hard to reach populations (people with existing mental health conditions and/or people with a co-occurring condition e.g. sensory loss, alcohol, or substance issues)
  • Patient centred care pathways
  • Treatment resistant conditions
  • Prioritisation of backlog

The competition is funded and managed by NHS Scotland.

This is a Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition, which will fund contracts to bring innovative solutions that will deliver person-centred and equitable Mental Health support and services for people in Scotland.

This is a Pre-Commercial Procurement Challenge competition funded by The Scottish Health Industry Partnership (SHIP) and Scottish Government Mental Health and Wellbeing Directorate. The Test Bed environment is provided by one of three Regional Test Beds within NHS Scotland Health Boards.

Phase 1 is allocated 180,000 GBP for a maximum of 6 projects. Phase 1 projects can range in size up to total costs of 30,000 GBP inclusive of VAT.

Scope

Your application should address one of the challenge areas listed below. If you want to apply for more than one challenge, you will need to submit a separate application for each challenge.

In phase 1, you must:

  • demonstrate the technical feasibility of your proposed innovation
  • establish ongoing collaboration between technical and clinical members of the project team
  • formalise any required ethical approvals, data sharing agreements and contracts
  • begin working with clinical data.

We would welcome bids that bring together sector specialists.

The aim of this competition is to develop disruptive innovative solutions that address:

Challenge A – Supporting people who are not currently receiving treatment and addressing the backlog of patients on waiting lists.

The themes and priority areas below are for illustrative purposes and are not exhaustive.

Innovation themes:

  • Supported self-management.
  • Diagnosis and assessment.
  • Digital psychological interventions, e.g. formal evidence based psychological treatments / interventions; just-in-time adaptive interventions.
  • Information, advice and self-help (this is not about creating new interventions, rather focusing on maximising what we currently have)
  • Transdiagnostic processes – issues that are present across disorders e.g. sleep, rumination, social avoidance, pain.

Priority Areas:

  • Neurodevelopmental difficulties in Children and Young People
  • Able Autistic Group
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder
  • People with low levels of activity and promoting exercise as an intervention.
  • Hard to reach populations (people with existing mental health conditions and/or people with a co-occurring condition e.g. sensory loss, alcohol, or substance issues)
  • Eating disorders – Low weight/ anorexia (this patient group has seen a 240% increase in referrals since routine services opened up again following the first Covid lockdown period.)
  • Young people and innovation in schools

Challenge B – Delivering person-centred and equitable Mental Health support and services to people who are currently receiving treatment by optimising clinical and social care pathways.

The themes and priority areas below are for illustrative purposes and are not exhaustive.

Innovation themes:

  • Digital pathway enhancements including asynchronous approaches (Before referral, at triage, whilst awaiting first appointment, during treatment, after discharge, communication between services, person-centred care planning.) This could include information, advice and self-help; and/or collection of clinical information, eg, from inventories to inform assessment/care.
  • Remote monitoring, including medication monitoring, collection of patient reported outcome data from digital products to help tailor care to needs of people with ongoing mental health challenges; and collection and analysis of data from multiple agencies that may indicate deteriorating mental health in adults or risk in children and young people.
  • Novel approaches to identify new therapeutic and technological opportunities for treatment resistant mental health problems.

Priority Areas

  • Keeping people at home – e.g. innovation opportunities linked to the Intensive Home Treatment model
  • Maintaining connections with home for inpatient care

Q&A Sessions and contacts

Open Q&A sessions will be held on Microsoft Teams as follows:

12.30-13.30 – 11th of July

12.30-13.30 – 27th of July

12.30-13.30 – 9th of August

Any Questions relating to procurement processes should be submitted through the procurement portal. Any Test Bed engagement required to develop your proposal should be directed to the individual Regional Test Bed:

North of Scotland Test Bed
Contact: gram.innovation-hub@nhs.scot

West of Scotland Test Bed
Website: West of Scotland Innovation Hub | Innovation Hub (woshealthinnovation.scot)
Contact: innovation@ggc.scot.nhs.uk

Health Innovation South East Scotland
Website: NHS Health Innovation South East Scotland | Welcome (edinburghbioquarter.com)
Contact: innovations@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk

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