A joint project between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (OBMH) and The Oxford University’s Department of Psychiatry has won a national Health and Social Care Award for its innovative approach to improving care and access to services in the area.

The project saw OBMH and the University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry work together to come up with a text messaging system for people with bipolar disorder, which enables them to monitor their own condition and keep GPs up-to-date with how they are feeling.

John Geddes, Professor of Epidemiology Psychiatry, Oxford University said, “From a clinical point of view, the effect of the system has been dramatic. We feel much better informed about how well our patients are and about estimating the effects of changes in treatment”.

The award was presented at a ceremony held in London on Tuesday 1 July. The ceremony followed an NHS Live event, which brought together staff from across the NHS to share their ideas, and included speeches from Lord Darzi and Don Berwick, President and CEO for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, who gave an international viewpoint on the NHS.

Now in their seventh year, the Awards, run by the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and the Department of Health, are designed to showcase best practice from the frontline. The successful Oxford project was selected from a total of 2,500 applications received from across 10 regions.