Digital Pioneer: Emma Selby, North East London Foundation Trust

Emma Selby is a Clinical Nurse Specialist at the North East London Foundation Trust. She is recognised as a digital pioneer for her work in creating the My Mind app, which is designed to improve access to resources and communication for children and young people accessing mental health services.

Users can create profiles and link them together, helping to build rapport and giving patients more power over their recovery journey. Care plans and crisis plans can be uploaded to the account so they are more accessible to young people.

“Young people said that they didn’t like talking on the phone and that they felt unable to identify the best online resources,” Emma explains, “ Meanwhile, clinicians felt that there was too much duplication of work and admin tasks.

“There are already a number of instant messaging-based apps, but we found there was no digital resource currently offering a link to the electronic patient record and therefore chose to design our own.

“Users can message and video call each other, and all written communication that occurs within the app will be uploaded to the electronic patient record within 24 hours. This prevents the clinicians from having to duplicate work and reduces admin time whilst ensuring it is the true voice of the child that is recorded.”