Rethink Mental Illness and Mental Health UK have blazed a trail in adopting AI by launching a pioneering policy, organisation-wide training, and a cross-functional steering group – empowering staff to innovate. Their goal is to build an AI-native workforce, enhancing mental health services through the responsible, creative use of technology. We talk to Matt Hill, Director of Technology Innovation at Rethink Mental Illness and Mental Health UK, about the charities’ experiences.
1. Can you tell us about your AI journey so far at Rethink Mental Illness and Mental Health UK?
In late 2023, I noticed a surge in conversations about adopting AI, fuelled by the rise of ChatGPT. Excitement was building, but discussions were still mostly led by private sector sales teams and technology enthusiasts. The vast majority saw AI as quite a cool tech toy, but not something that was going to be too relevant or interesting to them.
I convened our executive leadership teams across Rethink Mental Illness and Mental Health UK to discuss what opportunities AI may present. This sparked discussion around how the rapidly emerging technology could – and would – find its way into the mental health sector, influencing the future of service delivery, campaigning, communications and, well, near enough everything.
What was resolutely clear from that first meeting was that we wanted to take the lead and not wait for others to do so first. Within two months, we’d finalised our very first organisation-wide policy on adopting AI and its use in our charity – one of the first UK businesses and charities to do so.
We established an internal AI steering group, bringing together staff from all corners of our charity, from HR and finance to those designing services and working on the frontline. This group included AI enthusiasts as well as those just beginning to explore its possibilities. Our discussion covered the fundamentals of AI, its power and potential, how to use these tools, as well as what the risks might be. This empowered staff to go away and start conversations with their own teams.
Recognising the growing presence of AI and wanting to take advantage of this, we shifted our focus to education. We designed and launched our very own AI fundamentals e-learning for all our 1,200 staff and volunteers in December 2024, becoming the first UK charity to offer formal training to its entire workforce.
2. What have you learned so far, and what have the results been?
I’ve learned to see AI as a powerful instrument in my toolbox, but not the silver bullet to every problem. For each problem it solves, there is the potential for it to create more. I’ve also learned that AI should not be gatekept and managed solely by technology teams. Instead, we need to see ourselves as the enablers of this technology, being the critical friend of our non-tech counterparts, providing the organisation and its staff with a framework to assist their navigation, and ensuring they have the knowledge to start innovating with this technology in their areas of work.
The results have been positive. We’ve seen an incredible amount of engagement from staff at all levels. Some of these colleagues wouldn’t ever traditionally describe themselves as being confident with technology, but they are nonetheless front and centre in some of the most brilliant and creative ideas for adopting AI, such as using conversational AI for referrals instead of complicated forms, or using AI to analyse sentiment in communications with service users. Nothing is more reassuring of our strategy than being approached by an excited colleague with an idea and a plan to use AI, and being able to help them evolve that into something we can deliver and benefit from.
3. Can you tell us about your AI training programme? What does it look like and what do you want to achieve from it?
Aligned with our AI adoption and usage policy, we mandate that staff who are using AI for their work complete the training to ensure a thorough understanding of how it works, its flaws, and the ways they can use it effectively, such as through prompt design and iteration. We launched our AI training programme in December 2024, when it was made available on our internal e-learning platform for all 1,200 staff and volunteers.
From April 2025, our AI training will become a mandatory part of our e-learning for every staff member alongside our data protection and cybersecurity modules, recognising its permeation into so many different aspects of our working lives. Our goal is to create an AI-native workforce, ensuring staff have the skills to use it effectively and responsibly.
But this is just the beginning. Over 2025 and beyond, we plan to introduce role-specific training, such as AI for analytics, AI and accessibility, and advanced AI for power users. By continuously developing our training, we aim to keep pace with AI’s rapid evolution and ensure our workforce remains confident and capable in maximising its potential.
4. You’ve also been working on your AI strategy and governance. How is that going?
AI is a rapidly changing, ever-evolving technology. Its evolution is outpacing any technological change I have seen before in my career.
This is a challenge to keep up with and things like annual reviews or five-year strategies are simply not responsive enough. Our approach is to have frequent, cross-functional discussions about AI to share learnings internally, as well as externally with other charities and organisations facing the same challenges. I attend sector networks and conferences to understand and learn from broader AI developments, which we then use to refine our approach accordingly.
We keep an open dialogue through our steering group about how AI is being used, capturing ideas, concepts and pilots from across the organisation. Our AI policy is also on its second version, reviewed by the steering group. While we are pleased our original approach is still relevant and robust over a year into our AI journey, we’ve built on it by introducing more clarity on the dos and the don’ts, adding CoPilot Chat to our workforce, and starting to recognise the environmental impact of AI to support our organisation’s sustainability ambitions.
5. What are your AI plans for the rest of the year?
Keep talking about it! My diary is already filling up with AI-themed conferences and I’m delivering talks and workshops to a range of audiences from the technology sector, healthcare sector, and providers of education for trainee counsellors and psychotherapists. I want Rethink and Mental Health UK to be leading the charge for the sector on AI, sharing our exciting ideas and learnings. We also want to be open about the knocks and scrapes we will inevitably have as we move forward on this journey.
Mental health services are increasingly under strain. There is an increasing demand from the public for our services, against the backdrop of a challenging economic environment for charities, funders and our supporters. Because of that, I’ll be making sure I spend a lot of time listening to my colleagues, joining their conversations about how adopting AI can help them, and supporting them to leverage AI to deliver more, enhance quality, and claw back time from administrative burdens. This will free up our staff to do what they do best – supporting people experiencing mental ill-health and campaigning for change.