Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) has signed a 5 year contract with Patients Know Best (PKB) to provide their personal health record solution. This will enable their entire patient population and all health and care professionals to benefit from the platform, allowing the Trust to securely share data with patients in a timely manner.
“We’re excited to pioneer the use of PKB across our CAMHS services and explore how PKB can give our patients and service users direct access to their clinical records and transform the delivery of services for this cohort of our population”
Patient User Group (PUG) sessions have been completed with the Trust, and feedback from these has been used to both choose the platform and to understand how best the platform should be used. As such, the Trust plan on using tools in PKB such as shared personalised care planning, sharing digital correspondence and appointment information, issue questionnaires, provide symptom tracking, a personalised digital library of resources and device integration.
The PUG’s highlighted how patients were required to explain their mental health history with different professionals which, at times, can be difficult. As a result of using PKB, BEH professionals will now have a better understanding of the patient, prior to their consultation. This is because patients will have the ability to explain their history, thoughts and feelings in their own words within PKB and document this at a time and in a way that best suits them. The use of PKB will also support the Trust in effectively monitoring patients remotely and enable the early identification of deterioration where inpatient crisis support may have otherwise been required.
Overall, BEH is looking at the implementation with the aims of improving patient engagement, satisfaction and empowerment. Whilst also making direct cash releasing savings through sending correspondence digitally, and efficiency savings by reducing the number of phone calls to the Trust.
Both child and adult patients can use PKB, with a clear focus on the Trust’s CAMHS services being the first service to look at how their service delivery can be altered with the support of using PKB. This transformation programme will also be of national importance with NHS England supporting the programme directly to deliver a blueprint for other CAMHS services when using patient facing tools.
“For children and young adults today’s technology isn’t redefining a generation, this generation are redefining technology and how it is used. They have grown up in the digital revolution and the expectation is for data and information to be at their fingertips and interact the way they want. We are excited to be working alongside our children and young adults with PKB to design a patient held record that delivers direct access to records for our CAMHS population and transform the delivery of care, driven and co-designed by our Service Users.”
In anticipation of this rollout, and to support existing users of the platform, North Central London ICS has already enabled the PKB and NHS App integration for their patient population. This enables current and future users to utilise NHS login to register for and access their Personal Health Record within the NHS App. The Trust also joins other NHS organisations who have contracted with PKB across London such as those in North East London ICS and North West London ICS in using PKB.
“It is great to see both an expansion in our work supporting Mental Health Services, but also within North Central London. After increased usage over the last 5 years in North West London, and over the last 2 years in North East London, it will be a real step forward for BEH patients who span mental health and physical health services across the North london region, to now be able to access and contribute to a joined up record across these localities. So many services will benefit from the blueprint BEH is looking to produce, and we are so pleased to be able to support them with the delivery of this.”
