AI driven mental health app Wysa has won the ‘Company Generating the Greatest NHS Benefit’ award, as part of this year’s Digital Health.London Accelerator programme. The programme is for digital health companies with a product or service that has high potential to meet the current challenges facing the NHS and social care today, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and as detailed in the NHS Long Term Plan.
Wysa is a global leader in AI-driven mental health support, accessed via its app, and, available both to individuals and through employer benefits programs. Wysa provides preventative support and monitoring for dealing with stress, depression, and anxiety with the help of an “emotionally intelligent” bot, which uses evidence-based cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT), meditation, breathing and mindfulness exercises, as well as micro-actions to help users build mental resilience skills.
The award winner was selected by a panel of expert judges following an application process for the 21 organisations on the 2022 programme. Lewis Manning, NHS Navigator at DigitalHealth.London says: “WYSA are helping tackle a key pain point which is endemic across the NHS: growing waitlists across the mental health sector. I have thoroughly enjoyed working closely with WYSA over the last few months, and in particular, guiding them through their evidence generation journey. As a result of their extensive portfolio of tangible cost and time-saving benefits, we’ve seen rapid NHS adoption of the WYSA platform this year. I am so pleased that the efforts of the team were recognised in the 2022 DigitalHealth.London Accelerator awards, and I look forward to seeing WYSA being further rolled out across NHS mental health services.”
Wysa was recoginsed as a leader in delivery in Adult Mental Health Services and Children and Young People’ss mental health services. Designed to support 12-25 year olds and adults, it has the opportunity to transform mental health services for people experiencing symptoms in a way that is accessible and engaging, and helps deliver access to therapy, prevention and self-management support any time that people need it.
Ross O’Brien, Managing Director of Wysa UK says “Winning the award provides external validation of the impact that Wysa is having within the NHS. We have undertaken extensive evaluation both internally and with academic researchers, and this validation supports the growing body of evidence we have that Wysa has the ability to transform healthcare. We’re delighted to win this accolade specifically for our NHS products which are aligned to the specific needs of the clinicians and patients.”
The NHS version of Wysa is tailor made for the NHS by a team of clinicians and professionals with extensive experience in mental health and NHS services. It includes a digital front door for referrals, which has been adapted to integrate with the IAPTUS Electronic Patient Record system, requirements for self-referral, clinical assessment questions and SOS escalation pathways.
Wysa has benefited from the Accelerator’s tailored support over a 12-month period, including a dedicated NHS Navigator who has NHS clinical or service manager expertise, a programme of expert-led workshops and events as well as bespoke 1:1 advice sessions with digital health and NHS advisors from across the DigitalHealth.London network, and an opportunity to create meaningful connections between innovators and NHS organisations with specific challenges.
About Wysa
Wysa is a global leader in AI-driven mental health support, is available directly to individuals and has been adapted to support health providers and employers. Wysa helps in dealing with stress, depression, and anxiety with the help of an “emotionally intelligent” bot, which uses evidence-based cognitive-behavioral techniques (CBT), meditation, breathing and mindfulness exercises, as well as micro-actions 
to help users build mental resilience skills. Wysa has facilitated over 100 million conversations in 65 countries across the globe. Wysa supports a growing number of IAPT, CAMHS and CYP services in the UK as well as 20 enterprise partners.
