Harnessing immersive technology and game design to radically change how paediatric social screening can improve in hospital support for young people’s mental health care.
Project Team: Hollywood Gaming are a creative technology company based in Warwickshire. Since founding in 2005 they’ve forged an extensive portfolio developing games for major entertainment brands including EA, Hasbro, Sega and Paramount Pictures. As technology and audiences have evolved, so too have Hollywood Gaming and their work and expertise now incorporates immersive technologies including XR, AR and emerging multi-sensory tech. Hollywood Gaming were the recipients of the second larger grant and was a joint bid with a local NHS Trust.
The Opportunity
Hollywood Gaming were keen to collaborate with the NHS long before the Launchpad Innovate funding calls. 5 years prior they’d connected and discussed the potential of games and immersive technology to support young people in accessing mental health care and were keen to work together.
With limited resources available to the NHS, and the project at a stage too early to secure private investment the Launchpad Innovate UK fund finally unlocked the resources needed to be able to follow through on this ambition.
The specific challenge they focussed on was the referral assessment process for young people referred to hospital because of mental health concerns. Currently the NHS referral sessions rely on paper-based questionnaires, with questions that are challenging for young people to understand and difficult for clinicians to explain. With referral sessions sometimes as short as 10 minutes, issues created by this process at such a critical stage of support, form part of a much larger mental health crisis currently impacting young people in the UK. 1in 5 young people currently face a mental health issue and a swift and efficient screening process for intervention is a critical first step allowing them to access support and care.
In response to this challenge, Hollywood Gaming brought their expertise with games and augmented reality to explore new ways for assessments to be undertaken. They explored and tested new approaches better suited for young patients that could allow for more open and insightful discussion and help provide more effective and efficient pathways into support.
The Project
The team put aside any preconceived ideas about how the project might manifest. Entering the project with an open mind, undertaking multiple focus groups with patients, parents, guardians and clinicians. These discussions helped highlight what approaches might work and which to avoid, such as the choice to work with tablets and Augmented Reality (AR) over VR, because clinical psychologists noted that neurodivergent young people can sometimes struggle with this technology.
Through Launchpad funding the team have now developed a prototype for a new modular assessment platform and are on the verge of successfully completing a ‘minimum viable product’ (MVP). Moving beyond the paper form, the new platform uses tablets for younger audiences and AR for older children. Through a playful and visual interface, children interact with video game characters as a way to respond to questions and communicate their health and feelings.
The Impact
The funding has been an essential catalyst that has provided Hollywood Gaming access to a new and substantial market and industry. It has allowed the team to grow and bring on essential skillsets and has put them on a pathway to access further funding from both the public and private sector.
The launchpad programme has helped open the doors for Hollywood Gaming with a host of other collaborators.
Together with their NHS trust partner, they are now in conversation with other NHS trusts from around the country who are keen to build on this initial project.
Outside of this project, the programme also connected the team with local marketing agency Glued. Through this new partnership they joined Glued as the technology partner in delivering a new immersive team building application.
What's Next
Since the project’s outset the team have been firm in their belief that any work within this space needed to be undertaken in direct partnership with the NHS. Whilst this ensures their work is in line with essential guidance and expertise it also means that the platform must meet specific NHS standards and must navigate the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) pathway. This work is both complex and expensive, but to support this the team have successfully been awarded further follow on funding by Innovate UK.
With the company on the verge of delivering an MVP of the platform they are looking towards the future with the ambition of seeing the project enter clinical trials in the Autumn. If this proves successful their hope is to then expand their work to other NHS trusts around the country.
Advice & Reflections
The team have seen first hand the benefits of allowing creative technology companies to review the challenges faced by fields such as the medical industry and be empowered to apply their expertise and skills to lead on R&D projects that tackle them. Their advice to other companies interested in pursuing similar projects is to go out, attend local events, find out who is in your local network, see who you can collaborate with. Because whilst the routes forward might be hard to navigate, it is much easier to do so alongside the support of the local community and ecosystem.
