Last November East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) became the first Trust in London to introduce the new eMHA by Thalamos system. A year on, we hear from Dr Peter MacRae, Consultant Psychiatrist at ELFT, about the positive difference the new system is making for both patients and staff (27 November 2025).

Introduction

As a consultant psychiatrist I see patients in a wide variety of situations and if use of the Mental Health Act (MHA) unfortunately becomes necessary then it’s important that the assessment process happens quickly and efficiently, so that treatment can be provided when appropriate to help keep people safe.

For many years MHA processes have relied on multiple paper forms being passed between professionals from different organisations. Moving around paper forms is prone to miscommunication and errors, and I’ve seen that delay MHA processes in the past. 

In 2022, ELFT introduced the Thalamos system to digitise and speed up some of our MHA processes, but I was keen that we went further to support our staff across a wider range of MHA activities. That’s why last year we were delighted to be part of the OneLondon eMHA programme to introduce a new and improved version of the Thalamos system in London.

The new eMHA by Thalamos system is designed to help staff access patient information more easily and support communication to ensure that MHA processes are tracked to their completion. It will help ensure that forms are shared with relevant staff within ELFT and our partner organisations when needed, for faster and more joined-up care.

eMHA by Thalamos

Last November we were really pleased to be the first Trust in London to introduce the new version of the Thalamos system. It was the culmination of months of hard work by so many people at our Trust, our partner organisations, OneLondon and others. It was a huge team effort.

Introducing a new digital system is difficult and we certainly experienced some challenges at ELFT, including helping our staff to get trained and ready in time for go-live when they’re already really busy providing care. But overall, it went as smoothly as we could have hoped, thanks to the willingness of our staff to embrace a new system to further improve the quality of our care, with the support of our clinical services leadership and effective support of our system supplier, Thalamos.

As the ‘pioneer’ Trust in London we were able to share lessons learned with the other Trusts who followed on from us in going-live as part of the OneLondon programme, helping to make the collaboration a success and improving care across the Capital.

Since the new system was launched here at ELFT it has been used around 30,000 times by over 900 members of staff from the Trust and our partners, supporting over 3,000 patients. In total eMHA by Thalamos has been used over 180,000 times across London over the last year by over 6,000 different health and care staff.

But those stats only tell part of the story, staff have been feeding back on how easy Thalamos is to use, how it helps reduce errors and supports faster and more joined-up care for patients. I’ve personally found it incredibly valuable for remote working to complete MHA processes, receiving notifications to confirm when other professionals have completed their parts of the process. It’s provided me with greater confidence that we’re consistently delivering safe care as efficiently as possible.

One of my colleague’s who’s a Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist here at ELFT said “The new eMHA by Thalamos system makes it easier to complete and share patient forms and it is so much easier to make corrections to paperwork which helps ensure patients get the right care sooner.”

Next steps

The new system is now live in five of London’s Mental Health Trusts and their partner organisations. We know it’s already making a positive difference, but we have ambitions to go further through the work of the OneLondon partnership.

Over the last few months, MHA forms from both the British Transport Police and the Care Quality Commission have been made available within the eMHA by Thalamos system, helping to make patient information easier to locate and saving our staff even more time.

We’re also working to enable frontline staff across the Capital to see the MHA status of patients who they’re providing care for via the London Care Record, and to streamline the way our staff are able to access relevant MHA information needed to administer medications.

I’ve been proud to be a part of the team that has developed and delivered this important programme. And ELFT is proud to have led the way and shared the lessons learned with our partners.

I’m excited to see how this programme develops further over the next year and to continue to help shape its progress which is all about providing safer, faster and more joined-up care for people who have complex mental health needs.

You can find out more about the OneLondon eMHA programme here.