Chatbot therapists c/o The Sunday Times

It wasn't that long along ago, I tweeted about the prospect of our clinical information systems 'listening' and autotranscribing one-to-one clinical contacts and even formal psychotherapy sessions. How time flies!

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

AI therapy chatbots 'Conventional'  Counselling / Psychotherapies Mental health - illness Issue of: 'Titles' I can call myself ... therapist, nurse ...	(New) Evidence-based Workflow: intake, assesses needs, booking into care, offers CBT based on guidelines. Uses a person's details, asks questions to identify the likely problem ... clinical
Empathy: Human - Machine Public safety DEMAND <-> supply Access to Therapy: Untreated? Other AI solutions - Slingshot AI	validation Regulatory approval Limbic AI unvalidated 'solutions' risk of a huge industry setback

My source: Danny Fortson, Chatbot therapists are here. But who's keeping them in line? The Sunday Times, August 17, 2025, p.4.

The online article is behind a paywall, but there is a related podcast (with advertising):

https://shows.acast.com/dannyinthevalley/episodes/the-man-behind-the-nhs-mental-health-bot

See also: 'AI' : 'ethics' : 'expert system, language'

NHS & Politics: You don't have to do 'The Hokey Cokey'

c/o Lunch with the FT - Amanda Pritchard
Life&Arts :: FTWeekend

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

'Another question that she says will become increasingly pressing is what "the core business" of the health service should be at a time when parts of the state and voluntary sectors have been squeezed, leaving the NHS to pick up the slack. GPs tell her that between one in four and one in five of their patients come to them for help with non-health problems. A colleague in a mental health service recently told her it employs a housing team to support patients who couldn't otherwise be discharged from hospital. "You wouldn't say the core business of the health service is as a housing provider, but that's where we've ended up."'

She adds: "Think about how long it takes to train a doctor - you can't change your mind every five minutes. . . Think about what it requires to put new [digital] systems in place. It's not buying the tech - that's the easy bit. It's the implementation . . . and some consistency of leadership is really helpful."

'The NHS contributes between 10 and 20 per cent to people's health, she says - a figure I find startlingly low. "The rest is what we would recognise as the wider [social] determinants, including housing, and meaningful employment, but also smoking, diet, alcohol and lack of exercise. "I know there's an anxiety sometimes about being too nanny stateish about this . . But it is going to take really bold action to set the conditions for people to then live healthier lives."'

'The abolition of NHS England marks the end of an attempt to take the politics out of the health service by placing its day-to-day running in the hands of an arm's-length body. But Pritchard suggests that if this was the intent, it was probably never realistic. "It's too important to the country [and] we spend too much public money for ... the politics not to be part of it."'

My source:

Sarah Neville, Lunch with the FT Amanda Pritchard, Life&Arts, FTWeekend, 26-27 April, 2025, p.3.

Previously: 'Nye' : 'SOCIO-technical' : 'housing'

'ABCD' mapped to '1234'*

For context [UK politics and policy] please see below ...

INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

BACKLOGS Person-centred: "Am I there yet?" Service-centred: "Are we there yet?"	AMBULANCES 'Just in TI:ME' [not] Hand-me-over-why-don't-you?
(Social) CARE	DOCTORS DENTISTS

"Sally Warren, director of policy at The King’s Fund,
said that Our Plan for Patients ‘amounts to little more
than tinkering at the edges’ despite containing some
‘sensible’ policies."     https://www.nursinginpractice.com/

Whether tinkering or not, don't forget and do take care around all the edges.
Do 'C' the low-hanging fruit.

[Just to be clear: This isn't about ✔ in boxes.
It's about integrating care, values, quality and safety. ]

https://www.nursinginpractice.com/latest-news/therese-coffeys-plan-for-social-care-only-short-term-solution/

^ and '5' the Spiritual too.

Context:

"Thérèse Anne Coffey is a British politician who has been Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 6 September 2022." Wikipedia.

"For Coffey, 'ABCD' stands for ambulances, backlogs, care, doctors and dentists – and rightly so." The Guardian

See also: c/o The Health Foundation

What are the public’s priorities for the NHS? And is the government listening?

Law 'in' Hodges' model (Discuss?)

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

	SUPPLY
DEMAND	unfair competition environmental   consumer protection competition

In demand and supply also consider this within the sociological and interpersonal domains in the context of COVID? 

If people 'behave' themselves*, i.e. do not 'raid' the shelves there will (should) be sufficient supply for all. 

In political terms, what happens when a government raises the prospect (the dichotomy) of supply chain problems and potential shortages?

The 4Ps are relevant here:

intra- interpersonal - PURPOSES

sciences - PROCESS (mechanistic)

sociology - PRACTICE (gone awry)

political - POLICY (discipline in communications)

*UK context - acknowledging the global audience.

 

Thanks to:

Malinauskaite, Jurgita, and Fatih Buğra Erdem. 2021. “Planned Obsolescence in the Context of a Holistic Legal Sphere and the Circular Economy.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 41 (3): 719–49. https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/gqaa061.

See also:

Myers-Briggs 'in' Hodges' model (Discuss?) 

 

Infographic: What does the UK spend on health and social care?

c/o John Appleby and BMJ


The political impact of this spending have huge ramifications for many individuals 
in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, equity and equality.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

	John Appleby: Infographic - What does the UK spend on health and social care?

Source:

This data vis piece in @bmj_latest apparently in the 99th percentile of all 13m+ research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric for online attention. #Whichisnice. @will_s_t https://t.co/meT0HBG1hO https://t.co/mbA2ZvwMdn

— John Appleby (@jappleby123) April 12, 2019

What does improving population health really mean? c/o The King's Fund

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic --------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

POPULATION

Individual as a Person# Individual Lifestyle Choices Mental Health NHS AND Social Services*? Motivation - PURPOSE Unhealthy behaviours Health Coaches

Local plans Individual as a Person -  Age, Sex, constitutional factors Individual Lifestyle Choices New Care Models* (and PROCESSES) Pop. Health = Aggregated Data Environmental conditions (Does the colour of Gov matter?)

Public Mental Health Health Care Demand in the community  Living and Work Conditions "Population health means the health outcomes of a defined group of people, as well as the distribution of health outcomes within the group." Social and Community Networks Social Care PRACTICE Education (informal) General Cultural and Socio-

NHS POLICY<-> Population Health Sustainability and transformation plans (STPs) "... health equity – the avoidable differences in health between different parts of the population – is a core part of understanding population health." Education (formal) Health Care Services Housing Water and Sanitation Agriculture and Food Production Work POLICY "In United States - Pop. Health defines aims of health system" Unemployment -Economic Conditions

Within Hodges' model the * items are automatically included in all four care domains (five with the Spiritual), for reasons of brevity and presentation they are included in what I consider their primary contextual domain.

Individual as a Person# in the Sociological and Political Domains in a group context (From: Dyad ... To: Current Human Population).

My source: Twitter @TheKingsFund

Everybody in NHS policy seems to be talking about population health. But what does it really mean? https://t.co/geV4R3S5DT pic.twitter.com/G8msXpzbet

— The King's Fund (@TheKingsFund) April 28, 2017

Dynamism - Stasis : Demand - Supply :Bed-blocking

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ---------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

Gibbons, K. (2016). NHS crisis deepens as bed blocking costs £6bn. The Times, August 12, p.1.

Image source:

Hospital Bed By Wojciech Zasina, PL, Noun Project