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Andres Ayrton @ Pexels
Professor David Clark, from Experimental Psychology, is a co-investigator on a major new Wellcome Trust funded project that will safely and securely incorporate the NHS Talking Therapies dataset into the OpenSafely health data platform. The project is a collaboration with the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences' Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science and the OpenSAFELY platform.
David is one of the original architects of the English NHS Talking Therapies programme and has assisted many other countries to develop similar programmes. In his role as NHS England’s National Clinical and Informatics Adviser he has helped ensure that outcome data is collected from 98% of the 670,000 people in England who have a course of NHS Talking Therapy for depression and/or anxiety disorders each year.
The insights generated will help us, the NHS, better understand what works for whom, ultimately enabling us to provide more effective, personalised mental health support to our patients.
- Professor David Clark
Commenting on the Wellcome Trust Award he says: “This research infrastructure comes at a crucial time for overstretched mental health services. NHS Talking Therapy services have repeatedly demonstrated their value in transforming people’s lives. However, the large and uniquely complete dataset has been underutilized. Much can be learned about how to further improve services and help the wide range of people whose lives are held back by mental health difficulties. OpenSAFELY provides the capability to analyse outcomes at scale, while maintaining absolute patient privacy. OpenSAFELY's proven track record in handling sensitive health data makes it the ideal platform for this vital research. The insights generated will help us, the NHS, better understand what works for whom, ultimately enabling us to provide more effective, personalised mental health support to our patients.”
Along with Professor Anke Ehlers, Professor Clark recently received the Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Knowledge Award for his work on Better and More Available Treatments for Mental Health . The international award included recognition of his work with NHS Talking Therapies.
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