Londoners get free 24-hour access to digital mood-boosting tools that tackle stress, anxiety and depression   

Good Thinking, the NHS-approved digital mental wellbeing service for London, has partnered with DigitalHealth.London Accelerator company My Possible Self to help more Londoners who are experiencing common mental wellbeing concerns improve how they feel every day.

My Possible Self, the mental health mobile app that uses clinically-proven techniques to help people reduce excessive stress, overload and anxiety, has partnered with Good Thinking to provide Londoners with new NHS-approved ways to combat poor mental health and boost wellbeing throughout their day. 

The app is based on content clinically proven to reduce stress, anxiety and mild-to-moderate depression within eight weeks. It has also been shown to improve work and social functioning.

The partnership offers a series of innovative tools to improve their wellbeing anytime, anywhere for people living and working in London.

Dr Richard Graham, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director for Good Thinking, said: “We know that one in four Londoners is going to experience a mental wellbeing problem in their lifetime, and many people are looking for new ways to proactively be mentally well. Our goal at Good Thinking is to find apps that contain the content that will make a difference to your mental health, but also give you a good user experience.”

“We think My Possible Self succeeds in both of these areas, and are excited to be bringing My Possible Self to the attention of Londoners, free of charge. We really think it can make a difference.”

The partnership with Good Thinking represents the company’s first commissioning by the NHS since the app was launched at the end of 2017. It was listed at the NHS Apps Library in summer 2018.

Fleur Wilkinson, director of My Possible Self, said: “We are delighted to be working with Good Thinking to provide safe and proactive self-help for Londoners who want better mental health. We believe that digital technology has an important role to play in promoting self-management and behavioural change at scale.”

Jenny Thomas, DigitalHealth.London Accelerator Programme Director, said: “It is fantastic to see more and more NHS organisations adopting new technologies to solve some of their long-standing challenges. I commend this move from the Good Thinking initiative, which will mean that more Londoners can access the mental health support they need, whilst alleviating pressure on the health service. Mental health waiting lists can be long, and this partnership with My Possible Self will help to put mental healthcare back into the hands of patients.”

My Possible Self has been adopted by a number of employers in the financial services and media industries to support employee wellbeing. It is also available directly to consumers via the App Store, Google Play store and through their website.

My Possible Self offers users a set of tools and techniques to better understand mood, notice patterns in behaviour, become more self-aware and improve mental wellbeing.

Good Thinking has been commissioned by all 32 London-based NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups, a majority of London Borough Local Authorities, and supported by Public Health England, NHS England and the Mayor of London. 

About My Possible Self:

• Joanne Wilkinson founded My Possible Self as a not-for-profit company in 2009. She is passionate about helping as many people as possible with their mental health issues and in 2013 was named Forward Ladies’ not-for-profit businesswoman of the year. 
• My Possible Self helped many people by providing them with access to counselling but the model was always limited in the number of people it could support.
• Daughters Hana and Fleur Wilkinson joined Harrogate-based My Possible Self Ltd and together they secured an exclusive UK licence to use content from the Black Dog Institute’s myCompass programme.
• Research has found myCompass to be an effective public health programme, facilitating rapid improvements in symptoms and in work and social functioning for individuals with mild-to-moderate mental health problems: https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-244X-13-312

About Good Thinking:

• Good Thinking is an NHS-approved online mental wellbeing service. It is made possible by funding from London’s borough councils, NHS and Public Health England and supported by Healthy London Partnership.
• Good Thinking is designed to provide safe 24/7 proactive online support to Londoners to help improve their mental health (London Mental Health: The invisible costs of mental ill health (2014) https://www.london.gov.uk/london-mental-health-invisible-costs-mental-ill-health)
• Every year 1 in 4 people will experience a diagnosable mental health problem
• 18 per cent of people who have mental illness meet the criteria for common mental health conditions
• London has the highest proportion of the people with anxiety in all the UK
• Each year the wider economic and societal impacts of mental ill health cost London £26 billion
• London boroughs spend £550 million per year supporting people with common mental health issues
• So far over 225,000 Londoners have used Good Thinking (good-thinking.uk) since the launch of its pilot in November 2017. On average, 20,000 users now visit the site each month.
• Users of good-thinking.uk are anonymous and can choose not to submit personal identifying information (IP addresses identify when users are in London).
• Via self-assessment quizzes on good-thinking.uk users can access over 120 different online resources. Over 90 are free or have free content. Others have a small charge or can be made available via health insurers. All are reviewed by an NHS Specialist Clinical Psychiatrist. They offer a diverse variety of approaches for managing the identified conditions via techniques and technology readily accessible in 2019.