Improving Community Mental Health Services with Cellma

Community mental health services form the heart of local well-being, ensuring people can access long-term mental health support within their own communities – whether through home visits, outreach programmes, or local health centres. 
 
Yet today, these services are under immense pressure. As of April 2024, over 1 million people in the UK were waiting for mental health support. 345,000 referrals had been waiting for over a year, with almost 20% of adults waiting over two years to begin receiving treatment. The delays are just as shocking with children and young people. Almost 110,000 under 18s had waited over 12 months – 49.5% of cases waited over 18 weeks.  
 
This is a crisis that community health services can’t solve alone, but with an advanced EHR like Cellma, they can act faster, work better together, and deliver safer, better-coordinated mental health care across every stage of the patient journey. 

Growing Demand, Limited Capacity: The Strain on Community-Based Care 

By 2024: 

• 3.6 million had contact with mental health services (increased from 2.6 million in 2016)  

• Over 5 million individuals in one year and regionally across the UK accessed mental health support  

• 640,437 adults and older adults had two or more contacts within the community care  

• 788,000 children and young people had one or more contacts in 2023-24
   

From rural outreach to youth support groups, community health teams are doing more – but many are hampered by disjointed systems, paper notes, and slow referrals. 

That’s why Cellma, a leading-edge EHR comes in – not just as a hospital EPR, but as a complete Community EPR that works across disciplines, settings, and services. 

Conditions Managed in Community Mental Health Services 

Community teams care for people across a wide spectrum of mental health challenges, including:

• Schizophrenia and psychosis 

• Bipolar disorder 

• Severe depression and anxiety 

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) 

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) 

• Borderline and other personality disorders 

• Neurodevelopmental conditions (autism, ADHD) 

• Eating disorders 

• Dual diagnosis (mental illness with substance misuse) 

• Psychosocial challenges linked to housing, employment, trauma, or family breakdown  
  
  

Cellma supports structured care and risk monitoring for each condition with tailored templates and review protocols. 

Cellma: Designed for Community Mental Health Services 

Cellma is a comprehensive EHR, built to reflect real-life community care workflows. It enables local providers – community health services, clinics, outreach teams, walk-in centres, social care partners, and voluntary organisations – to manage referrals, assessments, care plans, and crisis support from one secure platform. 

Whether you’re working in a rural community clinic or an urban outreach programme, Cellma is flexible, multilingual, and locally configurable to your needs. 

Let’s break down how it supports the complete community mental health care journey: 

1. Referral & Triage in Real-Time 
Referrals come from many sources: GPs, hospitals, schools, local authorities, family services, or even self-referral through integrated care platforms. 

Cellma enables digital logging and tracking of referrals, classified by level of urgency: 

• Emergency (same day) 

• Urgent (1–5 working days) 

• Routine (within 3 weeks) 
  
  

This triage dashboard provides a real-time view of cases that need priority attention as well as ensuring that referrals are neither missed nor unprocessed. 

2. Comprehensive Assessments that are Holistic 
Cellma is designed to help clinicians and care teams complete comprehensive assessments, either face to face or virtually. Cellma’s tools allow for the completion of assessments including:  

• Mental State Examination (MSE) 

• GAD-7 and PHQ-9 assessments for anxiety and depression  

• HoNOS assessing overall outcomes 

• These assessments can be used to understand an individual’s mental health needs, risk factors and their social setting as part of a larger totality.  
  
  

Once completed, Cellma provides a comprehensive personal Care Plan under the Care Programme Approach (CPA). A personal Care Plan includes; goals, timeframes, crisis situation protocols and care coordinator. 

3. Real Multidisciplinary Care in Action 
Community mental health services are inherently collaborative. Cellma enables multi-disciplinary teams to collaborate within the same digital record.  

A care team may include, depending on the case:  

• Psychiatrists 

• Community psychiatric nurses 

• Psychologists and therapists 

• Social workers 

• Occupational therapists 

• Peer support specialists 

• Employment or housing advisors  
   

Through Cellma; they can write shared notes, develop shared action plans, update medication charts and track goals, while remaining connected and in real time. 

4. Monitoring, Reviews & Community Forums 
Follow-up is critical to long-term mental health recovery. Cellma automatically flags overdue reviews, helps coordinate appointments, and keeps CPA-aligned plans current. 

5. Handling Crisis: Responsiveness When It Matters Most 
Crisis doesn’t wait – and neither should care. Cellma supports emergency responses by connecting patients to: 

• Crisis teams and mobile outreach services 

• Home-based support instead of hospitalisation 

• Mental health liaison teams based in A&E (if applicable) 
  
  

Alerts are triggered for risk factors, missed contacts, or changes in behaviour logged during appointments – so teams can act fast and support individuals in distress. 

6. Discharge, Step-Down & Community Reintegration 
Recovery in mental health is about more than stability – it’s about returning to daily life. 

Cellma supports transitions: 

• Back to primary care or GP oversight 

• To IAPT or psychological wellbeing services 

• Into voluntary support networks and peer-led groups 
  
  

Discharge planning is fully documented, with handover notes, contact information, and optional post-discharge support like check-in calls or digital follow-ups. 

Reporting, Integrations & Security – Fully Aligned 

Cellma helps community care teams deliver high-quality mental health support with: 

• Referral and waiting time reports 

• Risk and incident logs 

• Outcome dashboards using HoNOS, PHQ-9, GAD-7 

• Caseload management reports 
   

Cellma integrates with key systems used in community care: 

• GP Connect 

• NHS Spine & PDS 

• CIS2  

• EPS (Electronic Prescription Service) for safe, seamless prescribing 

• eRS for referral communication 
   

Security and data privacy is comprehensive: 

• End-to-end encryption 

• Role-based access 

• DSP Toolkit 

• Audit logging 

• GDPR-compliant 

• Cyber Essentials Plus certified 

• ISO 27001 accredited 
    

At its core, community mental health care is about meeting people where they are. Whether that’s at home, at school, in the clinic, or through outreach – services must be responsive, coordinated, and compassionate. 

Cellma is built for this reality. From managing soaring demand to improving continuity of care, Cellma enables health and care providers to spend less time on admin—and more time supporting individuals on their path to recovery. 

Ready to support your community with better mental health care? 
Book a free demo of Cellma today.