Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership staff have won an award in a ceremony dedicated to how technology is used to improve health in Scotland.

The second Holyrood Digital Health and Care Awards took place in Edinburgh on 20 February.  The awards aimed to recognise the achievements of those individuals and teams working in the health and social care sector whose creativity and innovation continues to put Scotland at the forefront of the digital revolution in healthcare and improves the life chances and quality of patients across the country and beyond.

The NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde Computerised CBT Team, hosted by the Partnership, won in the Accessing Mental Health Care category.  The team reaches out to people who suffer from mild to moderate mental health issues, helping them to access specialised care. The team are Lisa Heffernan, Co-ordinator, and Susannah Warner, Project Assistant, with support from Dr Jane Burns, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Dr Gwenny Jenkins, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Carolan Forbes, Office Manager.  They are also supported by the National Lead for cCBT, Chris Wright.

Computerised Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (cCBT) is an evidence-based programme for people with mild to moderate anxiety and/or depression.  Anyone over the age of 16 can be referred to the programme by their GP and is given an activation code to start within a week of the referral being received.  There are eight sessions focussing on CBT techniques for managing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

cCBT has been rolled out across NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde since November 2017.  Its aim is to broaden access to psychological therapies particularly for people who are unable to access other services due to work, caring commitments or mobility issues.

Dr Jane Burns, Consultant Clinical Psychologist said: “Over 1,000 referrals have been processed from GPs across Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership with significant improvements on the CORE outcome measure of psychological functioning and positive feedback from participants about speed of access and how easy and beneficial they find the programme.” 

A participant said: "Most people these days are good with computers, and I honestly think that the cCBT tool is fantastic.  I would not have done CBT if I'd had to wait months for a face-to-face consultation, but having done cCBT over the last few months, I've become so much happier and more content in myself.”

Anne Malarkey, Community Services Manager for Mental Health, was shortlisted in the category of The Digital Impact Award, which is given to an individual who has championed the use of digital technology to transform services on a local level and improving outcomes for the service users in their area.  Anne was recognised for her work in implementing a programme to ensure all community-based services are fully digital. This allows patients to be supported by clinical staff who have a secure seamless and timely access to their history and care plans with the facility to make updates to their electronic notes.