Moai Health
Dr Patrick Davey, NHS Consultant Psychiatrist and Founder of Moai Health introduces a digital, end-to-end mental health and wellbeing platform for organisations.
Who are you and what do you do?
Dr Patrick Davey: I’m an NHS consultant psychiatrist and founder of Moai Health.
Essentially we turn organisational mental health data we gather into management information. We do this through ongoing wellbeing monitoring and insights that reduce the uncertainty of psychological stressors in the workplace into a clear set of decisions for leaders. We want to move away from fragmented, one-size-fits-all approaches, to data-driven and clinically-grounded solutions.
Dr Oliver Shipston-Sharman: I am Moai’s Chief Platform Officer. I’m the person behind the data set, the technological side of what we do and how we do it and aligning both with the clinical vision, which Patrick leads. I was a doctor in the NHS up until the end of 2021. One of my NHS jobs was alongside Patrick in community psychiatry.
Was there a moment/point that led you to start this company?
Dr Patrick Davey: I've seen colleagues experience burnout. I've certainly experienced burnout. I think that during the pandemic we all gained a gradual awareness that what we're doing in terms of mental health provision isn’t working. We’ve got to get better at early prevention, early warnings and interventions. My hope is that we can offer a fresh, systemic approach to what is a societal wide problem, but one which I think we can understand better and intervene earlier in.
One area we are focusing on is exploring protective approaches for organisations to improve collective resilience to the stressors we all face. As part of our intervention programme we help organisations optimise interpersonal relationships within teams. This helps build an increased felt sense of belonging for employees, which the evidence shows, can have a significant impact on wellbeing. It improves mental health, reduces anxiety, reduces depression, reduces suicidality, increases self-esteem, self-confidence and self-actualization as well as physical health. All of which ultimately contribute to increased productivity and performance in a work environment.
What qualities do you look for in the people you surround yourself with?
Full-hearted, optimistic, passionate, self-aware and kind.
What has been the brightest moment for you (and the business)?
Dr Oliver Shipston-Sharman: I think it was the realisation that we could do it. We've built a functioning cloud deployed platform that self-iterates and responds and automates a safety net for people if they need it. We're on our second iteration now, but knowing that it works, knowing that it’s fit for purpose as a MVP (minimal viable product) has been incredibly affirming.
Dr Patrick Davey: A couple of things stand out for me. One of them was to be selected onto the NHS clinical entrepreneur scheme and Mid and South Essex Clinical Fellowship scheme. These are huge opportunities for us to continue to test the platform in the NHS in different areas, which is exciting and validating.
Another thing was getting our first client. This is a school sixth form, who we’ve been working with to monitor levels of wellbeing for the students and offering a bespoke package of evidence-based interventions based on these findings. It is a wonderful, validating moment when somebody says; we're going to fund the product you've spent such a long time thinking about.
What one piece of music could be the theme tune for the business and why?
Hit or Miss, Odetta. We’re passionate about our approach and being true to ourselves and our experience.
What are the next steps for you and Moai?
Dr Patrick Davey: We’ve built our MVP, have signed our first clients and have just become the first clinician led organisation to offer ISO 45003 certification for organisations. This is a new psychological health and wellbeing standard developed by ISO and is proving very popular.
Dr Oliver Shipston-Sharman: We want to gather as much data as we can to feed our data model. Each time we gather data we learn from it and start to understand better what factors are causally linked to positive or negative mental health outcomes. So a big part of that is growing our client base to populate these data models.
Where do you see yourselves in five years’ time? What’s the vision?
Dr Patrick Davey: It's about combining the academic side of it with a powerful and meaningful user experience. Getting the UX to a really good position so we can offer world class mental health and well-being strategies to organisations and individuals where they have access to the best possible interventions.
Ultimately, we want to create a physical space where we can do workshops and retreats.
Dr Oliver Shipston-Sharman: My technical goal is to build a product that gives organisation the simplest pathways to the best way to understand the mental health of their organisation while offering ‘gold-standard’ interventions at an individual, team and organisational level.
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