The NHS has launched a new text service designed to provide round-the-clock mental health support across the East of England.<\/p>\n
Staffed by registered health and care professionals, it is available 24\/7 for people of all ages.<\/p>\n
The service can be used by people living in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Milton Keynes.<\/p>\n
Dr Fiona Head, medical director at NHS Central East Integrated Care Board (ICB), said it would give people “another important option” alongside existing support.<\/p>\n
Service users are connected with a crisis text responder upon reaching out to them.<\/p>\n
They are trained in safeguarding and crisis intervention, and can support people in distress, assess risk and signpost individuals to local mental health services.<\/p>\n
A web chat option also includes real-time translation tools, so responders can communicate in the sender’s first language.<\/p>\n
Support can be accessed via:<\/p>\n
Dr Andrew Rochford, executive medical director at NHS Norfolk and Suffolk ICB, said: “We know that reaching out for help takes courage. <\/p>\n
“For many people, especially younger people, sending a message can feel far less daunting than making a phone call or speaking face-to-face.”<\/p>\n
Do you have a story suggestion? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHS has launched a new text service designed to provide round-the-clock mental health support across the East…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-912537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=912537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/912538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=912537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=912537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=912537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}