Northern Innovation Accelerator for Mental Health
NIAMH
For expressions of interest in NIAMH participation, you can fill in our enquiry form.
NIAMH is designed to spearhead innovation in mental health research and supercharge mental health innovation with urgency, for speedier advances to address the UK’s pressing mental health needs at scale.
What is the Northern Innovation Accelerator for Mental Health (NIAMH)?
NIAMH is a clinically led, academically supported partnership that seeks to identify, evaluate and deploy transformative innovation across all aspects of mental health.
Conceived, developed, and supported as a Northern proposition partners identified the opportunity to level-up public sector R&D investment using existing strong research and innovation networks and an excellent track record of collaboration.
The accelerator aims to develop an infrastructure for real-time and real-world mental health evaluation across the North of England. Drawing on the region’s clinical excellence and long-standing data assets, NIAMH can be modelled and scaled elsewhere as the North demonstrates success.
Yorkshire and Humber will be the first place in the North of England to benefit from NIAMH, with Phase One in partnership with Grounded Research, the research and innovation team at Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHS Trust (RDaSH) and the NIHR Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber. Read more
Exemplars
The RDaSH and Israeli tech company Taliaz collaboration will see UK patients’ mental health treatment supported by Taliaz’s artificial intelligence (AI) software platform PREDICTIX. Combining medical science with AI, PREDICTIX translates complex genetic, demographic and clinical patient data into time-saving and cost-saving assessment, management and prescribing support tools for healthcare providers.
MindLife has been collaborating with RDaSH and the University of Sheffield and together have successfully developed and completed RCTs testing several digital innovations which improve mental health therapy and treatment outcomes, including remote group therapy (with a self-help app) to reduce burnout risk and improve NHS employee wellbeing.
The Vision
- NIAMH to be a globally recognised testbed for Mental Health innovations with an established network of practitioners, academics, and other partners
- Building research delivery capacity to attract global and nationally high-quality research opportunities for people living in the North of England
- Identification and articulation of mental health needs not only in services but also within the wider community and for industry partners
Economic growth will be supported through:
- Jobs created by expansion of companies as they develop new products and services and bring investment into the UK and also through
- The impact on the economy of increased productivity through better mental health of the workforce
The Challenge
Mental Health care has been an underserved area of acute need for some time. Post-pandemic, the need to innovate in mental health services is greater than ever, particularly with the growing evidence of the economic impact of poor mental health on the economic recovery.
There is a plethora of innovation to be harnessed but many innovations are being offered and implemented without thorough testing.
The benefits
- A globally known Testbed for Mental Health innovation
- A co-development and evaluation offer to industry
- Engagement of citizens in a high-trust environment for shaping priorities and data sharing
- Better outcomes for patients
- Efficiencies for the care system
- Economic growth
Why the North should lead on this
We have the ability to offer a significant population real world testing and evaluation, with the potential of reaching 17m patients. Anything developed and tested in the North is ultimately applicable and generalisable to populations nationally.
The work of the NHSA Northern Mental Health Network has adhered to a mantra of “if it can be done in the North, it should be done in the North”.
A northern-led Accelerator would help ensure access to research for those living in the North, where the disease burden exists.
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