Young people share their mental health experiences to develop hospital app | News and events

Young people in Norfolk and Suffolk have been helping to develop an app which supports them with mental health appointments.

Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust’s (NSFT) Particp8 group has been working with Birmingham Children’s Hospital in-patient and community teams to expand Xploro’s digital offering, which bridges the healthcare information gap.

The Xploro App helps young people with a medical condition understand what’s happening to them, who they might meet and what to expect at appointments. It is currently aimed at seven to 15-year-olds but the aim is to expand this to a wider age range and to include a version specifically designed for mental health appointments.

Xploro ran online workshops to engage young people and their parents/guardians in Norfolk and Suffolk to encourage them to share their experiences of mental health.

They were asked what content would help them feel less anxious about coming to an appointment and what needed to change to make the App suitable for a 16-25 year age range, as well as the look and feel, content and features and tone of language.

The workshops and online questionnaires, completed with Birmingham Children’s Hospital, were used to develop a list of recommendations (Mental Health Discovery Recommendation Report), which will be shared with the young people involved.

Ideas included making appointments easier to book, creating a tracker for reminders and information and giving information about the practicalities of the appointment, including an “environments” feature, plus a video tool to show what a typical appointment might look like.

There was also a suggestion to use the App to introduce key workers and a “storymaker” feature so young people only have to tell and map their story once.

The young people recognised the impact medical healthcare may have on their mental health as well as their body and felt more content in Xploro to support this would be of benefit. They were also keen to see practical exercises to use during treatment.

Bryony Price, customer success manager at Xploro, thanked the young people from Norfolk and Suffolk who contributed to the work.

“I want to say thank you again so, so much for all your help and support with this project, we couldn't have done it without you. I cannot thank you all enough for all the support with this.” She said the next step was to create a prototype for testing.

Sophie Davies, people participation lead for young people and families at NSFT, said: “It has been really exciting to be part of this work and see how the input of young people has helped to develop something which will be used to help so many others. The young people in the focus group felt this development would be a really helpful addition to the app, which is something they would love to see used more widely in future.”

NSFT chief nurse Anthony Deery said he welcomed any initiative which would help young people with anxiety to feel more relaxed around mental health appointments.

“It is great that young people using our services have been involved in this important project to improve how their peers access mental health appointments. We are keen to support young people and make our organisation safer, kinder and better for them.”

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