Thalamos gets $1M to digitize the Mental Health Act and reduce access to treatment time from 7 days to 15 hours

The mental health pandemic is a serious issue affecting millions of Americans. Sadly, the pandemic is not limited to the United States. According to the latest UN data, nearly one billion people worldwide suffer from some form of mental disorder. Fewer than half the people who experience mental health depression get treated for it because of the stigma associated with it.

The good news is that things are beginning to change with programs like Mental Health Awareness Month. In addition, governments around the world have initiated laws and programs to help mental health patients. In the United Kingdom, for example, the UK government enacted The Mental Health Act, a piece of legislation that covers the assessment, treatment, and rights of people with a mental health disorder.

To further help mental help patients and simplify access under the Mental Health Act, a tech initiative called Thalamos was recently launched to provide digitized versions of the forms required for admission, treatment, transfer, and discharge. Since its launch, Thalamos has helped to reduce average access to treatment time from 7 days to 15 hours.

Founded in 2018 by cousins Arden and Ross Tomison, Thalamos was inspired by the experience of a close friend who was sectioned. Countless paper forms had to be circulated and approved before his care could begin – leaving him waiting too long for help whilst in crisis. Determined to create a kinder, safer, and more efficient way for people to access acute mental health care, Arden and Ross set about designing a digital solution to provide a quicker, safer route to this vital care.

Today, Thalamos announced it has raised a $1 million (£900k) Seed Round backed by Ascension’s Conduit Impact EIS Fund, Angels including Syndicate Room, and a private Seedrs crowdfund.

Thalamos is a digitizing platform that gives people who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act quicker and safer access to vital treatment by enabling their care to be organized digitally. It replaces the outdated system of paper forms that are currently used to arrange care. Instead, Thalamos offers a streamlined digital system that significantly lowers the risk of errors and eliminates unnecessary delays. This allows the most vulnerable patients to access life-saving mental health treatment sooner.

Founded in 2018 by cousins Arden and Ross Tomison, Thalamos was inspired by the experience of a close friend who was sectioned. Countless paper forms had to be circulated and approved before his care could begin – leaving him waiting too long for help whilst in crisis. Determined to create a kinder, safer, and more efficient way for people to access acute mental health care, Arden and Ross set about designing a digital solution to provide a quicker, safer route to this vital care.

Thalamos already works with seven mental health care providers, giving over 40,000 practitioners access to the digital tools needed to speed up access to care for those in crisis. Using Thalamos instead of paper-based processes is reducing the risk of error by up to 89%.

Thalamos is currently working with 7 mental health care providers in England to provide swifter, simpler, and safer access to acute mental health care, and to support wider government Mental Health Act reform. The team also works closely with lived-experience professionals to ensure a responsible approach to innovation; one which also seeks to reduce inequalities as part of the process.

This investment comes at a crucial time, with the number of people being sectioned under the Mental Health Act continuing to rise. The funding will be used by Thalamos to expand their team and strengthen their product, helping them to support a growing number of mental health care providers as they work to better support patients, clinicians, and systems.

Founder Arden Tomison comments:

“When an individual is sectioned under the Mental Health Act, they are in need of urgent treatment and support. Delays in accessing this can severely hamper recovery. The completion of Mental Health Act forms is an essential legal process that ensures patients receive the right treatment, safely; but no one should have to wait for care when in crisis.

“As demand for acute mental health care rises, the current paper-based system piles an unnecessary administrative burden on clinicians’ plates, reducing their already limited capacity. This ultimately slows down access to treatment for patients and exacerbates growing pressures on services.

“At Thalamos, we’re working closely with mental health care providers across England to deliver a fully digitized solution which makes access to acute care swifter, simpler and safer. This is helping practitioners speed up the arrangement of patient admission, treatment and transfer, while increasing data security and care quality. We’re so grateful to our amazing group of investors for supporting us to expand our work to optimize the care accessed and received by a growing number of mental health care patients.”

Hadley Diest, Investment Manager at Ascension, will join Thalamos’ board as an independent advisor. She comments:

“Acute mental health care is an immense challenge in the UK – it is both traumatic for patients, and also hugely time-consuming and disjointed for the various stakeholders providing care. Thalamos’ groundbreaking digital workflow tool enables those involved in patient intake, treatment, discharge and ongoing support to work together more seamlessly than ever before, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and more efficient collaboration between the NHS, police, care providers and regulators.

“Further, as digital health is a focus area for the Conduit EIS Impact Fund, Thalamos represents a strong addition to our portfolio of companies that are both mission-driven and highly scalable in equal measure; Ascension and Conduit Connect look forward to supporting Arden and his superb team and advisors on this next stage of their growth within acute mental health and beyond.”