Thalamos

Idea

Introduction

In 2015/16 there were 63,600 detentions under the Mental Health Act (Sections). A 47% increase over the last 10 years. There were 181,785 Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard Assessments completed in 2017/2018. An increase of 19.6% on the previous year.

Our research shows that these are still predominately paper led processes, prone to errors. Thalamos are creating an e-form & communication platform. Our objective being to speed up access to treatment and reduce errors.

Awareness of Mental Ill-Health is increasing, yet when compared to other illnesses we are still way behind with treatment solutions.

As it stands;

- Suicide has become the biggest killer of men aged 20-49 and;
- 1 in 4 of us will experience a Mental Health problem in our lives.

We think that part of the clinical challenge of managing mental ill-health is that often a number of different agencies and entities can be involved.

- The NHS.
- Social Services.
- Police and Courts.
- Charities.
- Families.
- Private Sector Providers.

Involving multiple agencies can create communication and information sharing challenges, impacting patient care.

To date Thalamos has received investment of £100,000 to fund research into these digital challenges and the technical solutions for them.

Building on this research we are now creating our first SaaS solution: Software for Psychiatrists.

Intended impact

We started Thalamos with the stated aim of empowering Psychiatrists to improve patient outcomes, particularly in non-clinical environments.

Through personal connections and personal experiences we witnessed the acute lack of digital solutions available to Doctors. More often than not, Psychiatrists are still working off paper notes.

Our subsequent focus group research has shown that Psychiatrists feel digitally under-supported when operating outside of the NHS. This lack of support is affecting:

- Clinical Decision Making.
- Information Governance.
- Continuity of Care.

Thalamos are building a secure cloud hosted platform that psychiatrists can use in the field. The aim of this platform is to enable them to:

- Reduce their clinical risk.
- Reduce their Information Governance Risk.
- Improve the continuity of care for their patients.

From this base, we believe we are perfectly placed to further solve technology challenges and in time create a digital care pathway.

Substantial accomplishments to date

- With partners MindWave we've completed focus group research with Psychiatrists from North East London Foundation (NELFT) NHS Trust and South London and Maudsley (SLAM) NHS Trust

- Leveraging this focus group research we've completed a full technical software discovery process with Helastel. Amongst their previous work Helastel have created medical grade software subsequently approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

- Creation of a Psychiatrist led Clinical Steering Group.
The role of this group being to; advise on functionality roadmap, user experience and to form our early evangelist cohort.

- Creation of an industry specialist advisory board.
Over 40 years of experience with the likes of BUPA International, Ascribe Pharmaceutical Software, EMIS Healthcare Software and other investor and Private Equity backed businesses.

- Pre-Seed investment of £100,000 raised from professional investors.

- Arden appointed as a Development Partner with MQ Mental Health, the UK's leading Mental Health Research Charity

Monetisation strategy

The Thalamos platform will be a subscription service paid for by Psychiatrists from their Non-NHS income.

Annual subscription £600, paid monthly.

This is priced in accordance with their existing professional subscriptions:

- £450 - £624 Royal College of Psychiatry.
- £390 General Medical Council.
- £145 to £3,600 Medical Indemnity.

As with other professional expenses the fee will be tax deductible under "stationary".

Potential Ancillary Revenues:

- Training Courses.
- Private Practice referral fees.
- Accountancy referral fees.

Use of proceeds

50% Product Development

- Working with our partners to deliver our V1 product.

20% Go to Market

- Supporting Psychiatrist Training Courses.
- RCPsych Congress Exhibitor space.
- Email Marketing.

20% Working Capital

- Salaries.
- Office Costs.

10% Contingency

Using our founder investment and pre-Summer SEIS investment, we have already invested heavily in research and discovery. This means we're now ready to go. We have the team in place and the designs ready. As soon as we close the investment round we're straight into build.

From there we rapidly move towards beta testing and a full commercial launch planned for the 1st of July 2019 at the Royal College of Psychiatry International Congress.