Support for managing mental health in the digital world

Both the NHS and adult social care budgets are under extreme pressure due to the dual effects of an ageing population, and a rapidly growing incidence of chronic diseases. The latter are due, in part, to lifestyle choices such as smoking, binge drinking, a lack of exercise, and poor diet. This has led to commissioners having to make tough choices when allocating funding for some services. Mental Healthcare remains the biggest single item in the NHS budget. However, the overall spend is little over 10% of the overall budget and must deal with a disease burden which is approaching 25% of the whole. Services are therefore poorly resourced and face falling capacity at a time of rising demand, as shown in Figure 1; the King’s Fund found that 40% of mental health trusts in England had seen their budgets cut during 2015/6.