The Joy App
An effective ecosystem of support built on human connection
An EPIC project
I think it’s exciting to see the scope that social prescribing offers through the ability of tech to better measure activity now and therefore make the wider economic case around what potential that it unlocks, and that in turn, I think, will help change the Treasury appetite for programmes which were given lower priority in the past.
Steve Barclay, Health and Social Care Secretary, Spectator Health Summit, 2022.
Data-driven innovations like Joy are exactly the type of tech that the Health and Social Care Secretary is talking about. Digitising and streamlining the process of connecting people to non-medical services in areas such as social isolation and loneliness, mental health support, and social welfare, the web-based program, which operates on an annual subscription basis, can integrate with 90% of GP systems in England. It digitises previously laborious paper processes to enable fast, quality referrals to meaningful activities that help people access support for their individual needs. Equally importantly, it captures data to measure the impact of its services, tracking factors such as GP appointment reduction, performance data, and client needs.
In line with EPIC’s vision of improving quality of life and boosting wellbeing, the software empowers frontline workers to focus on client needs rather than administrative tasks, reducing job stress and improving the lives of healthcare workers as well as their clients.
Background
Interest in social prescribing has grown exponentially in recent years, due to a growing crisis in primary care:
- In 2018, then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, stated that social prescribing will be available at every GP practice by 20241.
- 1 in 5 GP appointments are for non-medical needs2 such as loneliness or debt stresses.
- 70% of health and social care budgets is spent treating diseases caused by lifestyle, owing to factors such as inactivity or substance abuse.
- The NHS is actively investing in social prescribing, however money and time is currently tied up in extensive paperwork. The average referral time is currently 45 mins, and only 1 in 10 people signposted to a service go on to access the support.
Joy founder, Patrick Harding, set out to solve two key problems; the lack of data to demonstrate the value of social prescribing, and the inefficient use of out-of-date service directories. The first is addressed with Joy’s Case Management System, (which captures data to measure the impact of social prescribing on health and wellbeing), while the second is addressed by Joy Marketplace (which automatically updates a directory of services in real-time to ensure accurate information is given to clients about current services available to them). The company also has an Insights platform, which visualises health and wellbeing data in real-time, with advanced filtering enabling users to pinpoint specific needs and highlight health inequities.
How has EPIC helped Joy?
Joy already had an annual turnover of £85k when they reached out to EPIC in 2020 but their project had three key areas of focus that required additional assistance:
- Integrating the app with the two primary clinical systems in the UK (to make it compatible with 90% of GP practices’ clinical systems).
- Improving the usability of Joy for GPs to enable ‘3-click referrals.’
- Running a post-integration pilot scheme to test the real-world benefits of their product. The aim was to work with Patient Participation Groups at local GP practices in the Southwest to measure factors such as the increase in referral and attendance rates, and the impact on patient outcomes.
Joy was awarded £16,000 in Challenge Fund grants in 2021 and contributed £21,318.20 in match funding. Initially working with Dr. Rebecca Baines, the team established a co-design process during which EPIC opened channels to hard-to-reach stakeholders and beneficial contacts such as public health commissioners, as well as academic projects such as GOALD and HAIRE. These connections helped Joy developers understand the priorities of those responsible for providing care and enabled them to maximise the platform’s usefulness for primary care providers.
A planned feasibility study in Cornwall was unsuccessful but took place in Cheshire with some interaction between EPIC and the social prescribers involved in the pilot study.
A planned feasibility study in Cornwall was unsuccessful but took place in Cheshire with some interaction between EPIC and the social prescribers involved in the pilot study.
In August 2022, EPIC researchers began recruiting social prescribers throughout Devon and Cornwall to provide Joy with detailed user feedback to help them develop and improve the app. Participants were incentivised with a £50 shopping voucher for their time, funded by a grant from the Research and Innovation fund.
Joy is really invested in the wellbeing of the social prescribers themselves, It’s not just about being able to work more efficiently – they believe that if you’re able to work more efficiently, if you’re able to do your job the way you want to, that will impact how you feel about yourself and your general wellbeing. That’s the overall ethos of Joy and what they’re trying to achieve.
Dr Nicole Thomas
Research Fellow in eHealth - Engagement & Impact Assessment
What’s next for Joy?
Joy currently provides software for 900 GP surgeries across the UK (including every GP surgery in Devon), covering around 15% of the market and servicing seven to eight million patients.
The company now employs 16 people in total, including a customer success manager in Bude. Their sights are set not only on how deliver non-medical support within primary care, but also how to embed social prescribing practices into wider health pathways. This is achievable by focusing on patient experiences and their outcomes, supporting more social workers, and reaching out to hospital discharge teams and those who rarely engage in mainstream health support.
Within the next five years, they hope to become the primary social prescribing app in the UK, scale out the app to enable multi-patient functionality, and expand into other care settings, both within the UK and overseas.
Social prescribing in GP surgeries in particular is growing. We’ve got a really good solution that we’ve built already and that we’re making even better to make it a really game-changing service GPs provide to their patients. The results are good – surgeries see a 20-35% decrease in surgery attendance after they refer patients to services. That works out to about six appointments fewer per patient per year, on average.
The EPIC team have been great; really professional, and they really helped frame what we needed to get out of it and helped make things happen. They conducted a lot of research for us, which was amazing.
Joy founder, Patrick Harding