Byron George

Byron is a chartered IT professional. He has over 20 years’ experience in strategic healthcare IT developments, delivering innovative systems to a wide range of health care providers including NHS, commercial and academic environments.

Our 60 seconds interview with Byron:

What do you do in the field of mental health?

I am responsible for leadership of a specialist team. We provide large-scale evidence-based digital mental systems to 1 in 3 NHS Talking Therapy services in England as well as supporting mental health services in Ireland, Australia and Hong Kong.

What do you find most rewarding and inspiring in this work?

Working with world-leading university mental health researchers and NHS services to help make a real-world difference to people’s lives by developing innovative digital mental health patient and clinical services based on the research evidence.

What is the most challenging or complicated aspect of this work?

The application of digital mental health within a healthcare setting requires complex regulatory compliance and expert knowledge of clinical risk management and clinical safety processes to ensure our systems are trusted and safe to use.

What impact do you hope your work is having- or can potentially have?

To date, PCMIS has been used to support over 4.9 million patients and 30 million patient contacts. It has influenced national NHS policy on mental health recovery rates and data quality targets, creating one of the largest and highest quality IAPT data sets in the world - an invaluable resource to help pioneer further evidence-based research.

Could you share with us one piece of advice that you follow for your own mental health?

I am an advocate of physical activities to help support a positive wellbeing, from walking dogs with my wife and daughter to extreme sports, which I find both exhilarating and therapeutic!