ORAHS2025
Abstract Submission

47. Innovative Approaches to Managing Demand and Capacity in Mental Health

Invited abstract in session ME-2: Cancer and personalised care, stream Sessions.

Monday, 15:30-17:00
Room: NTNU, Realfagbygget R8

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Christos Vasilakis
School of Management, University of Bath
2. Elizabeth Yardley
The Old Dairy, Mayden
3. Alice Davis
Mayden

Abstract

The NHS Talking Therapies (TT) programme in England follows a "stepped care" approach for treating patients with common mental health problems, where effective but less resource intensive treatments are delivered to patients first and more intensive interventions are provided only if required. Limited resources and pressure to achieve service standards mean that providers are keen to explore ways of improving patient flow. Existing evidence points to variation in clinical performance and stepped care implementation across organisations, and positive associations between service delivery and patient outcomes.
We aimed at developing innovative, advanced, analytical tools to help improve understanding and management of demand and capacity in this setting. We used individual level data to explore and model patient flows through TT care pathways using process mining and other data-driven methods. Second, we aimed at investigating the impact of wait times on patient engagement with TT services. The aim was to link the patient trajectory maps developed previously with analytical methods that will allow to draw insights on the way patients experienced the care pathway and their likelihood of engaging fully or partially with their treatment. Third, we built dynamic capacity models for NHS Talking Therapies services with "what if" capability, combining historic service performance with estimates of the likelihood of engaging with treatment to predict future capacity requirements.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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