Blog

Across Yorkshire and the Humber, partners are working hard to improve mental health and wellbeing, responding to rising demand and ensuring people can access timely, equitable and person-centred support.

There is significant work already underway across mental health providers, local authorities, universities, voluntary and community organisations and lived-experience networks. However, people still face long waits and fragmented pathways, while organisations face significant workforce pressures and variation in access, experience and outcomes.

At Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber, we are developing a regional programme to understand where innovation and transformation support could add the greatest value.

We want to build on existing work, share good practice and identify practical opportunities to evaluate, adopt and spread effective approaches.

A whole-system approach

This work comes at an important time for mental health services. NHS England and NHS trust CEOs have identified three ‘stretch targets’ for improvement, including substantially reducing inappropriate out-of-area bed placements, reducing long waits for people experiencing a mental health crisis in emergency departments, and improving access to children and young people’s mental health services.

These priorities highlight the need to understand where services are under greatest pressure, where pathways could work differently and where innovation, evaluation and transformation could help.

However, our discovery work will look beyond immediate operational priorities, recognising the importance of prevention, early intervention, community-based care, inequalities, neurodiversity and longer-term transformation.

A key consideration will be trauma-informed practice. Many people accessing mental health services will have experienced trauma or adversity. How services are designed and delivered can have a significant impact on whether people feel safe, listened to, respected and able to exercise choice and control.

Being trauma-informed also means recognising the experience of the workforce. Staff working in mental health can be exposed to significant emotional pressures, cumulative stress and the impact of supporting people experiencing distress. Creating psychologically safe and supportive working environments is therefore important not only for staff wellbeing, but for the quality and compassion of care people receive.

Better experiences for people using services and better experiences for the workforce should be seen as connected ambitions.

This work is being supported by our new Mental Health Clinical Lead, Kerry Hinsby, a Consultant Clinical and Forensic Psychologist with over 30 years’ experience, including 25 years working in Yorkshire.

Kerry said:

“I am really excited to be joining the Health Innovation team as Clinical Lead for Mental Health. There are huge opportunities for mental health services at the moment, but also very real challenges. I strongly believe services operate at their best when they are designed around the service user but also make the lives of clinicians and staff as hassle free as possible.

My aim is to use this new role to help bridge the experience and knowledge of frontline staff with the expertise, passion and capacity held within the Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber team. Together, the vision is to embed effective solutions that work for all.”

What do we mean by innovation?

Innovation is not limited to new technology. It could include:

• redesigning pathways and transitions
• developing new workforce or multidisciplinary models
• strengthening prevention and early intervention
• improving access and navigation
• using data more effectively
• adapting an existing intervention to a new setting
• testing digital, diagnostic or therapeutic approaches
• developing stronger partnerships with communities
• creating more inclusive and trauma-informed services.

The aim is to identify approaches that improve access, experience and outcomes and can be adopted sustainably.

We are also particularly interested in neurodiversity. ADHD and autism are not mental health conditions, but neurodivergent people may experience mental ill health, inequalities in access and outcomes, and difficulties navigating services that do not always meet their needs. We want to explore opportunities for earlier support, reasonable adjustments, personalised care and better coordination across services.

We’d love to hear from you

Meaningful engagement will be central to this work. We want to hear from people with lived experience, families and carers, NHS clinicians and operational teams, ICBs and provider collaboratives, local authorities, social care, education, voluntary and community organisations, researchers and innovators.

We recognise that many organisations and communities have already contributed to strategies, reviews and consultations. We do not want people to repeat insight that has already been gathered, so we would welcome existing reports, evaluations, engagement findings and examples of work already underway.

We are particularly interested in:

• the challenges that most urgently need to be addressed
• where pathways or organisational interfaces could work better
• where inequalities persist
• promising approaches already being tested
• what staff need to deliver high-quality care sustainably
• how trauma-informed approaches are being embedded
• evidence or evaluation gaps preventing wider adoption
• where regional collaboration could add value.

Help shape the next steps

Yorkshire and the Humber has significant expertise, commitment and innovation across mental health landscape.

By connecting this knowledge more effectively, we have an opportunity to strengthen existing transformation work, reduce duplication and help effective approaches move from promising ideas or local practice into sustainable delivery.

To contribute insight, share an existing project or discuss a potential area of collaboration, contact Ben Porter, Project Manager, at Ben.Porter@healthinnovationyh.com