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HealthSocietyTechnology & Science

Scaling up LENS

Anxiety and depression are among the top ten causes of years lost to disability worldwide, representing a trillion dollar loss to the global economy every year. Over half a million people suffer from anxiety and depression each year, and rates are increasing. More accessible, effective interventions that target the key mechanisms that maintain anxiety and depression are urgently needed.

LENS (Learning Effective New Strategies) is a digital therapy proven to reduce anxiety and depression, and increase resilience. It does so by retraining the brain and transforming thinking habits. This allows people to naturally react differently to stress. They do not have to make an effort to apply a particular strategy or methodology, they just process uncertainty more positively, breaking the vicious cycle that fuels anxiety and depression.

Accessible through an online platform without the need for interaction with a doctor or therapist, LENS is highly scalable, and it provides a valuable alternative to people who are not able to or interested in undertaking talking therapies.

This project will explore models for LENS rollout in commercial, public, social enterprise and charitable sectors, including delivering a corporate pilot to employees of an organ transplant company and designing a pilot for NHS staff.

The business models developed for LENS will ensure a focus on ‘delivering social good’ to support some of the estimated 1.4 million people in the UK who have anxiety or depression, increasing their resilience and empowering them to improve their life outcomes.

“It is extremely exciting to have an opportunity to scale our innovation, LENS, and its potential to make mental health interventions more accessible, increasing patient choice and improving life outcomes.” - Colette Hirsch, Professor in Cognitive Clinical Psychology and Honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist at King's. 

Partners and Collaborators

A network of multidisciplinary partners from across and beyond King's are working together to maximise the impact of the project. 

Find out more about the project partners:

Key stakeholders also include: 

Impact

 The expected impact and results of the project include:

  • Bringing together expertise from across King’s, including regulation, business and digital, to explore social enterprise routes for LENS
  • Rolling out LENS to an organ transplant services company that is seeking to build mental health resilience in its workforce. LENS will be made available to employees, with evidence of impact on staff absenteeism and burnout captured.
  • Establishing LENS as a licensed resilience-building solution on corporate services platform, muuvment.com.
  • Gaining buy-in and developing a plan to make LENS available to NHS workers, with a future intention to scale to NHS patients and the public. This will include fostering relationships with the NHS and charities supporting NHS workers, such as Healthcare Workers' Foundation and NHS Charities Together, to develop a potential strategy for roll out.

Longer-term targeted impacts include reducing anxiety/depression and absenteeism in companies globally, with measurable impact on profitability and staff wellbeing, as well as among NHS employees, with measurable impact on wellbeing and NHS effectiveness, and among NHS patients and UK public through embedding LENS in NHS provision.

This project is supported by the One King’s Impact Fund.

The One King's Impact Fund is part of One King’s Impact, King’s strategic programme to support and accelerate work within and beyond the University which creates positive change for people, planet and society.

Scaling up LENS responds to the following Impact Priorities:

Technology for good | Whole life health for mind and body

Project status: Ongoing

Principal Investigator

Funding

Funding Body: One King’s Impact Fund

Amount: £95,000.00

Period: August 2024 - August 2025