NHS may use people's phone data to predict mental health issues

An algorithm to predict which people may experience a mental health crisis has been trialled in the UK and found effective enough for routine use. A version that would track people's mobile phone calls, messages and location in a bid to improve accuracy is now being considered. Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust worked with Alpha, a division of Spanish telecomms firm Telefonica, which owns O2, to see if there was any benefit in automatically flagging the people thought most at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis to NHS staff. The results of the Predictive Analytics project, released under freedom of information rules, suggest there is. The project ran between November 2018 and May 2019. Alpha developed a machine-learning algorithm fed with historical patient data to predict who could face an imminent crisis.