The government has recently announced that the amount of mental health support teams (MHSTs) will be increased, with the goal of reaching over a million more pupils, and full national coverage expected by 2030.
With around half of all mental health disorders beginning by the age of 14, the MHST expansion in England will play a vital role in continuing to deliver:
- Early interventions
- Support for group work
- Supporting overall whole school approaches
- Improving overall attendance rates and engagement within education
To support as many children and young people as possible, local needs must guide the expansion of the MHST programme. Ensuring equitable access will be key to building a robust, whole-school approach to mental health – one that not only supports wellbeing but also improves outcomes such as attendance and engagement in education.
MHST expansion: increasing capacity through technology solutions…
Whilst it is good news that the MHST programme is expanding, resources continue to be stretched. This means MHSTs will have to do more with the resources they have.
The NHS is expecting that all MHST providers grow their teams to reach 100% coverage in their areas by 2030. However, the government expects them to do this without any additional funding. This means that MHSTs will really have to focus on finding efficiencies in how they communicate with and support CYP in schools.
Digital tools like iaptus play a vital role in supporting the MHST expansion and to ensure high quality and consistent care for CYP.
Adopting digital programs helps reduce administrative time, allowing services to support even more children and young people.
iaptus can help MHST services
Our digital care recored, iaptus, offers the option to seamlessly refer individuals directly to clinically validated digital programmes, with progress notes and outcome measures sent securely back into the individual’s record in iaptus.
iaptus is well placed to support the MHSTs expansion by:
- Capturing data for all different functions of MHSTs: one-to-one sessions, group work, signposting and the Whole School and College Approach.
- Streamlined data reporting with compliant data submissions to the MHSDS dataset.
- Flexible and configurable care pathways to guide a young person through their support journey.
- Allowing you to view shared data to discuss referrals and inform case management supervision.
- Streamlining processes and reducing time spent on admin.
- The ability to add session notes to clinical records in real time.
- Sending SMS appointment reminders to CYP, parents and carers.
- Clearly identifying previous support and informing future interventions.
By adopting a system like iaptus, MHSTs can deliver more responsive and data driven support, and at the same time, reduce administrative burden and improve collaboration across education and healthcare settings.
If your MHST could benefit from adopting iaptus, our team would love to show you how we might help. Book a demo.
If you are working within an MHST and would like to access free training resources, you can view the MHST section of our Mayden Hub.