London-based Thalamos picks up €1 million to digitise Mental Health Act

London-based mental health startup Thalamos has raised €1 million to digitise the Mental Health Act. The seed round was backed by the Conduit Impact EIS Fund managed by Ascension, angel investors including Syndicate Room, and a private Seedrs crowdfund.

Founded in 2018 by Arden and Ross Tomison, Thalamos gives people who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act quicker and safer access to vital treatment by enabling their care to be organised digitally. It replaces the outdated system of paper forms that is currently used to arrange care. The platform provides digitised versions of the forms required for admission, treatment, transfer and discharge under the Mental Health Act. 

The company claims it is reducing the risk of error by up to 89%. This allows the most vulnerable patients to access life-saving mental health treatment sooner. It currently 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.

The investment comes at a time when the number of people being sectioned under the Mental Health Act continues to rise. The funding will be used by the company 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 said: “The completion of Mental Health Act forms is an essential legal process that ensures patients receive the right treatment safely. 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.”

Hadley Diest, investment manager at Ascension added: “Acute mental health care is an immense challenge in the U.K. 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.”