Welsh Government announces £7.7 million in funding to extend online mental health service
The Welsh Government has confirmed £7.7 million of funding to support a free online mental health support tool which was piloted following a reported rise in levels of anxiety due to the Covid pandemic.
SilverCloud Wales is overseen by Powys Teaching Health Board and is designed to help people who experience mild to moderate anxiety, depression or stress, manage their mental health and wellbeing.
The additional funding will see the programme extended for a further three years and the service is also being expanded to offer access to digital therapy for young people aged from 11-years-old and also provide perinatal support.
During the pilot over 23,000 people accessed the mental health programmes and 64% of people reported positive outcomes following self-referral to the service which is supported by a team of psychologists and online cognitive behavioural therapy co-ordinators.
Benefit
Announcing the new round of financial support, Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Lynne Neagle, said: “Mental Health affects people in different ways and we want to offer a range of resources to help people, those with low level mental health needs can hugely benefit from using SilverCloud.
“The service is available 24/7 and no referral is needed. Feedback we have received has shown that people felt SilverCloud really helped them through a time where they needed a bit of support and I am pleased we are now expanding the services offered.”
Ken Cahill, CEO of SilverCloud Health, added: “SilverCloud Health is proud to be helping NHS Wales to help people across the country get the mental health support they need at this time.
“With 18 years of research behind us, our programmes, designed by clinical psychologists have high success rates to support their effectiveness. Every person helped is a success story as far as we are concerned.”
The therapy platform that uses proven methods like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to help people manage their problems by encouraging them to change the way they think and behave.
Users can choose from a number of mental health and wellbeing programmes to complete at their own pace over 12 weeks.
Programme options include help with anxiety, depression, stress, sleep, and money worries.
All programmes feature activities and interactive tools to help users develop skills to manage their psychological wellbeing with more confidence.
You can access SilverCloud directly without a referral from your GP by visiting here…..
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very poor substitute for talking therapies, have tried a course of treatment for mild depression via silvercloud, it kept repeating asking ‘ do you have any suicidal thoughts ?” , which until then I did not, online therapies are extremely limited in their scope, tread witn caution with self referring onto silvercloud, also at that time, it was monolanguage in english only, another barrier to mental health therapy.
a trained counsellor is so much more effective than basically an algorthim .
I’m all for automation and digital systems, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. You can’t automate mental health treatment. Even the most sophisticated AI cannot replace a session with a trained, professionally qualified counsellor. Without disrespecting this Silvercloud thing, it sounds like a basic, branching questionnaire <If yes, go to page 4a, if no go to page 4b> sort of stuff. This is basic building blocks stuff. Okay for a customer services survey, or some other unimprotant tickbox exercise, but potentially quite damaging to people with mental health concerns who first and foremost need to be heard and understood. Nuance… Read more »