First mental health trust joins collaboration of North East NHS organisations to drive forward digital health technology within the region

Health Call has today announced that Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW) have joined the NHS collaboration as a shareholder.

CNTW is the seventh North East NHS Foundation Trust - and the first mental health trust - to join the digital healthcare partnership known as Health Call.

As a ‘Global Digital Exemplar’, CNTW is committed to developing innovative digital solutions to improve patient experience and its partnership with Health Call will bring significant benefits to people across the region.

Ian Dove, Business Development Director at Health Call, said: “We’re delighted to welcome CNTW as a Health Call shareholder. We’re excited to work with them to develop and implement digital tools that will enable patients in the North of the region to have both physical and mental health needs serviced through one app.

“This also represents an important milestone for Health Call as a company as we broaden the scope and impact of our products to include mental health for the first time.”

Darren McKenna, Director of Informatics at CNTW, said: “CNTW are excited to join Health Call and enhance the current services to meet the needs of Mental Health patients. Health Call brings together a wide range of specialist NHS expertise to achieve more through collaboration and provide an affordable, sustainable and high quality modern digital service for patients. We look forward to working with Health Call partners to develop an even wider range of services in the future.”

Health Call was established in response to growing demand from patients to be able to interact with their personal health and care records through digital applications and services.

Six NHS Foundation Trusts across the North East came together to create an innovative digital platform which supports healthcare professionals to design, develop and implement personalised digital health services at speed.

Nick Black, Director at Health Call Solutions Ltd, said: “Health Call has made great strides since its inception in 2014, and by growing our partnership to now include CNTW, we’re widening the space in which truly innovative and game-changing digital technologies can be developed for the benefit of patients, clinicians and the wider NHS.

“By consolidating resources and doing it once for the region, we are reducing operational delivery costs and also bringing our digital community closer together as a network so that we can share learning across the same consistent products.”

Patients and NHS staff across the country are already benefiting from Health Call’s tools for a wide range of conditions, including self-testing INR and Stopping Smoking to managing the risk of falls and undernutrition in Digital Care Homes.

With the addition of CNTW, the Health Call partnership now includes major players in digital health, boasting two global digital exemplars and two global digital fast followers.

Other Trusts involved in Health Call are County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust.

 About Health Call

 Health Call is 100 per cent owned by the NHS and exists to drive service transformation by using proven digital health technologies to support patients and create capacity in the health and care system.

Health Call is collaboration between seven NHS Foundation Trusts in the North East of England. The trusts include County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, North Tees and Hartlepool Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust and Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

Health Call is the largest deployment of digital care technologies in England. Covering two STP regions, Health Call enables best practice and diverse clinical expertise to be shared across Trusts.

Digital services designed, built and deployed by care professionals are made available to every organisation within the Health Call collaboration within hours, meaning digital care can be rolled out safely, at scale and at low cost.