Mental health has long faced a ‘silent pandemic’, which is getting worse due to the deepening of the cost-of- living crisis and adding further pressure to an overwhelmed health and social care system, according to a recent warning by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK. The impact of money worries is already being felt among the population, with children and women especially hit, recent research found. Added to this is the steadily growing trend in workers in healthcare and many other sectors, reporting issues such as depression, burnout and sleep deprivation.

Against this backdrop, the second edition of A&M Healthcare & Life Sciences’ industry dinners gathered healthcare and consumer leaders to discuss how insights and access to people in their daily lives can be applied to deal with this complex, pressing problem.

The conversation focused on the role insights and access generated in the consumer sector, as well as their digital enablers, could play in helping address issues of awareness, prevention and treatment accessibility in mental health. For example, the group explored use cases of digital technologies in mental healthcare such as leveraging consumer digital channels to raise people’s awareness of their needs and help them navigate relevant services, apps that use gamification to engage with patients suffering from emerging anxiety issues, or the option of provision of therapy in the metaverse, as part of a care and engagement plan.

The roundtable continues a series of conversations exploring what healthcare and life science stakeholders can learn from other industries on how to better understand, engage and serve people. Follow-on dinners will be hosted by A&M’s team in Manchester and Paris in September and October, respectively.

In addition, A&M is partnering with the Royal College of Arts’ Service Design Challenge Labs to further brainstorm innovative, human-centric solutions to these challenges and convert ideas to actions and results through hackathons and design sprints being scheduled in the autumn, as well as joining up these dinner conversations and attendees via virtual platforms in the metaverse. 

Example themes identified from discussions and to be used to shape briefs for the RCA Health Lab

Please get in touch if you would like to join this debate by contacting David Champeaux or Alex Barclay.