CATCH - Common Approach To Children's Health

CATCH (Common Approach To Children's Health) is a digital health information platform designed for parents and carers of children from pregnancy to age five. Commissioned by Local Maternity Systems, CATCH provides curated, locally-tailored health information and service details via a mobile app.

Key features of CATCH include:

1. Comprehensive content: Aggregates information from over 150 trusted sources, going beyond NHS content to address the complex, interconnected challenges of early childhood health.

2. Just-in-time notifications: Delivers age-specific information to avoid information overload and ensure relevance.

3. Local integration: Fully integrated into local maternity and early years systems across NHS, Local Authority (LA) and providers.

4. Cultural sensitivity: Offers content variations to cater to diverse cultural backgrounds.

5. Multilingual support: Provides professional translations, currently available in Polish and Arabic.

Evidence supporting CATCH's effectiveness:

1. User-reported impact (782 responses):

   • 61.4% of users considering emergency services reported that CATCH helped them self-care instead of attending A&E.

   • 53.1% of users considering GP services reported that CATCH enabled self-care instead of a GP visit.

   • 65.6% of users (465 responses) say it's helped with vaccinations.

2. A&E attendance reduction:

   • Analysis of Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) for East Cheshire Trust (February 2023 - June 2024) shows a lower percentage (8%) of A&E attendances for children aged 0-4 compared to both the wider Cheshire and Merseyside ICB (11%) and England (10%) average.

   • East Cheshire Trust had the lowest percentage of 0-4 A&E attendances for 14 out of 17 months compared to neighbouring trusts.

3. User engagement and satisfaction:

   • 95.2% of users (853 responses) would recommend CATCH to friends and family.

   • 90.0% of users (783 responses) report feeling more confident in caring for their children.

4. Quality assurance:

   • ORCHA score of 81%, indicating high quality as a health app.

   • iOS Store rating of 5.0 / 5.

   • Android Store rating 4.2 / 5.

5. Regulatory compliance:

   • Determined by the MHRA not to be classified as a medical device, due to its provision of general, non-personalised health advice.

CATCH has been successfully deployed in East Cheshire for 8 years, West Cheshire for 4 years, and St Helens for 2 years. Its recent migration to Damibu's Feeds content management platform has enhanced its capability to manage and deploy multiple content variations efficiently, positioning it for wider adoption across the NHS.