Using a digital messaging service to enhance access to mental health support

ABSTRACT

Why you should read this article • To understand the potential benefits of using digital messaging services to engage with service users • To learn about a digital messaging service that has been developed and rolled out in numerous trusts • To recognise the challenges that may be encountered when providing digital healthcare and consider how to address these School nurses and health visitors across the NHS often use text messaging as a simple and efficient way to engage service users directly. This article explores how a team of school nurses used a safe and secure web-based messaging portal – ChatHealth – to enable young people and their parents and/or carers to discreetly contact nurses about sensitive topics, such as mental health. The author also discusses the UK-wide roll-out of ChatHealth, as well as exploring how a perinatal mental health service and young people's mental health support team implemented their own messaging services to meet the needs of service users.