UK’s Thalamos bags €1M to digitise access under the Mental Health Act for those in need

London-based Thalamos, an end-to-end software solution for people sectioned under the UK’s Mental Health Act, announced on Thursday that it has raised $1M (approximately €998K) in a Seed round of funding.

The company says it will use the funds to develop its product as well as increase its workforce in order to serve an increasing number of mental health care professionals and their efforts to support patients, doctors, and systems more effectively.

Investors in this round

The investment was made by Ascension’s Conduit Impact EIS Fund, angels including Syndicate Room, and a private Seedrs crowdfund.

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

According to Hadley Diest, “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’ digital workflow tool enables those involved in patient intake, treatment, discharge and ongoing support to work together seamlessly, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and more efficient collaboration between the NHS, police, care providers and regulators.”

What does Thalamos offer?

Thalamos enables the digital organisation of care for those who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act, allowing for speedier and safer access to critical care. The company replaces the obsolete method of making care arrangements using paper forms.

Instead, it provides a simplified digital method that reduces the possibility of mistakes and gets rid of pointless delays. This makes it possible for people who are most at risk to receive vital mental health care sooner.

Arden Tomison, founder of Thalamos, says, “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 the 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.”

The story behind Thalamo

Founded in 2018 by cousins Arden Tomison and Ross Tomison, Thalamos was motivated by a close friend’s experience being sectioned. Before his care could start, a tonne of paperwork had to be passed around and authorised, which made him wait too long when he was in need.

Determined to make it easier, safer, and kinder for individuals to get acute mental health care, Arden and Ross set out to construct a digital solution to offer a speedier, safer route to this crucial treatment..

Currently, the company 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. According to the company, using Thalamos instead of paper-based processes is reducing the risk of error by up to 89 per cent. 

Arden Tomison says, “At Thalamos, we’re working closely with mental health care providers across England to deliver a fully digitised 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.”