Why Mental Health Trusts Must Rethink Patient Engagement Portals – And How Portasana® Delivers

Across the NHS, the demand for mental health services is outpacing capacity. While acute services benefit from high-profile waiting list initiatives and funding uplifts, mental healthcare continues to wrestle with serious systemic challenges – limited resources, complex service configurations, and disjointed digital infrastructures.

At Wellola, we believe Patient Engagement Portals (PEPs) hold transformative potential – but only if they're purpose-built for the complexity of mental healthcare. Here's how Portasana®, our modular, interoperable care and communications platform, supports overstretched clinicians, modernises administration, and empowers patients to become active participants in their care.

The Problem: An Overloaded System Struggling to Meet Mental Health Demand

In January 2025, NHS waiting lists stood at 7.4 million patients – and that’s not even counting the 1.6 million people waiting for mental health treatment. The post-pandemic landscape, growing awareness of mental health, and an alarming surge in need among children and adolescents continue to drive demand. But staffing and funding haven’t kept pace.

According to the BMA, vacancy rates in mental health are 12.3% for doctors and 11.3% for nurses – significantly higher than the NHS average. Layer on top of that:

• Widespread reliance on paper-based administration

• Mergers between community and mental health trusts that complicate governance

• Fragmented digital systems across disparate sites and geographies

• Patients navigating multiple services for a single episode of care

The result? High rates of DNAs (Did Not Attend), long waiting lists, and widespread patient confusion. Clinical, administrative, and CIO teams alike are under pressure to deliver safe, joined-up care in a system that makes this near-impossible.

What’s Commonly Used Today – and Why It’s No Longer Enough

Many trusts have made important strides toward digitising patient engagement. Some have adopted standard portals to display appointments or distribute letters, while others have developed bespoke tools for specific departments or patient cohorts. These efforts represent positive steps on the journey to digital maturity.

However, the reality for many mental health and community services is that patient communications remain fragmented. Paper-based workflows, legacy systems, and point solutions often coexist — making it difficult to deliver a seamless, joined-up patient experience.

Common challenges include:

• Limited interactivity: Patients may be able to view content but not update appointments, receive condition-specific educational resources, or provide feedback to their care team.

• Disconnected systems: Tools are not always interoperable with core EPRs or the NHS App, which can result in inconsistent experiences across services and sites.

• Static functionality: Many solutions offer only basic features, doing little to ease administrative pressures or support self-care.

• Lack of scalability: Few systems are built to support complex, multi-site, multi-condition care journeys — the norm in mental health and community care.

Modern mental health services need more than a digital front door — they need a secure, intelligent, interoperable platform that can evolve with the needs of both clinicians and patients, meeting operational goals across the care continuum.

The Portasana® Difference: A PEP Purpose-Built for Mental Healthcare

Portasana®, Wellola’s secure care and communications platform, goes far beyond the capabilities of a traditional portal. It was designed with clinicians and for complex health environments — especially the nuanced needs of mental health trusts.

Reduce DNAs and Waiting Lists

By delivering appointment notifications, educational materials, questionnaires and digital letters directly to the patient’s device – with configurable read/write functionality – Portasana® empowers patients to:

• Update appointment times

• Confirm attendance

• Begin care before they ever set foot in a clinic

Proven impact:

• £330K savings per annum in a single department

• 30% of avoidable face-to-face appointments prevented

• 36% of follow-ups transitioned to self-management

Enable Integrated, Cross-Site Care

One trust we support operates across 65 sites, serves four acute trusts, and receives referrals from scores of GP practices. Portasana® delivers a single patient view across all of it.

• Fully interoperable with multiple EPRs – including Access RIO, widely used across mental health

• Integrated with the NHS App, giving patients one communication hub across services

• Enables a consistent, joined-up experience for both patients and staff

We are proud to be one of the first UK vendors to complete both NHS App and Access RIO joint integrations – collaborating with pioneering clients such as Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Support Personalised Self-Management at Scale

Portasana®’s Virtual Care Pathways module lets clinicians tailor condition-specific journeys using:

• Symptom tracking

• Messaging

• PROMs and e-Forms

• Wearables and medical device integration

With 11 pre-built care modules, it’s easy to configure "Waiting Well", peri- and post-operative, and chronic care pathways that support patients between appointments – or in some cases, reduce the need for them altogether.

Why it matters:

• 19% fewer GP appointments

• 38% fewer A&E attendances

As NHS England states:

“Supported self-management is arguably one of the most underutilised evidence-based, cost-effective health interventions available.”

Empower Patients, Reduce Anxiety, and Improve Outcomes

Patients with mental health challenges often feel overwhelmed by the system. With Portasana®, they don’t just get messages – they get clarity, reassurance, and a way to contribute actively to their care.

• 97% of patients in one implementation would recommend the platform

• 86% said it reduced anxiety about their condition

Clinically-led. Technically-sound. Ready to scale.

Portasana® is a modular, FHIR-based platform built on AWS with low-code flexibility and rapid implementation timelines. Whether you're a CIO seeking interoperability, a clinician looking to deliver smarter care, or a COO aiming to reduce system strain, Portasana® is built to support you.

We’re here to collaborate – not just as a vendor, but as a clinically-grounded partner who understands your service pressures and wants to deliver meaningful transformation.

Let’s reimagine patient engagement for mental health – together.

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