ChatHealth

About

ChatHealth helps to safeguard vulnerable service users, using technology they are familiar with to enable them to securely contact a healthcare professional, supporting timely, confidential access to help. ChatHealth is co-designed by clinicians and service users. Its messaging helplines make holistic help universally accessible, simply by promoting a single centrally-staffed service throughout an area. Service users do not need to wait for a clinician to visit and the service is completely anonymous, meaning it reaches out to often seldom-heard groups.

• Available to nearly six million people across the UK, including young people and the parents/carers of babies, children and young people • Increases service reach/access - could deliver approx. 100 additional contacts every month• Overcomes the stigma or embarrassment of face-to-face consultation• Reaches more underserved groups - For example, 1 in 5 male users compared to 1 in 10 in face-to-face clinics

ChatHealth can help health teams to deliver more contacts with existing resources. At any time, just one healthcare professional can handle all messaging enquiries from an entire population, usually only impacting around 0.5WTE capacity. At a combined cost of £10k (salary and product licensing) less than a WTE post, a single healthcare professional can support a population of 85,000 service users and deliver 50 contacts p.c.m. These low-cost additional contacts eliminate unnecessary face-to-face contact (more resource intensive, more costly to taxpayers). They say it would take four more staff to deliver the same number of additional contacts face-to-face, costing £150k.

Find out more at chathealth.nhs.uk and take a look at our Impacts Report