When Debbie Martin first heard about the idea behind Thalamos, she had already spent decades applying, teaching and researching mental health law.
Qualified first as a social worker, she trained as an Approved Social Worker before moving into education where she now teaches Approved Mental Health Professionals (AMHPs), doctors, nurses and occupational therapists. Alongside her academic work, she provides specialist supervision to AMHP services, has written extensively on mental health law and recently completed an independent investigation into the homicide of a mental health patient.
So, when Thalamos founder Arden Tomison approached her with an idea for a digital platform designed to improve practice under the Mental Health Act, Martin viewed it through the lens she always applies: would it genuinely help people make better decisions?
“I was happy to help,” she recalled. “I loved the idea of a system that could improve practice and patient outcomes.” What impressed her then, and has kept her involved as a member of the Responsible Innovation Group (RIG) ever since, was that the ambition never shifted.
“I feel that consistently they have held steady to that, which is great, especially when you’re trying to sell a product.”Martin’s role within RIG is straightforward but critical. She helps ensure that every feature, workflow and decision is grounded in the law before it is ever built.
The gap between what people think is legal and what is
Martin’s starting point is always the statute. Legislation like the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act set the framework, but she is equally attentive to the case law that shapes how it operates in practice.
“Whilst we have Acts of Parliament, we also have cases that go before the courts. It’s those judgments that alter how we interpret the Acts. The Acts don’t change, but we do operate differently as a consequence.” That distinction matters for digital tools. A system built on an outdated or incorrect legal interpretation does not just create compliance risk. It can embed that error into everyday practice at scale.
She is also alert to the ways software can inadvertently guide users toward assumptions that have no legal foundation. That concern came into sharp focus during work with police partners, when she identified that a test being used to establish incapacity was simply wrong. “It could lead you to establishing incapacity and acting in the best interests of someone who actually had capacity,” she explained.
The assumption had been that because the police operate the law, they must know it. Martin’s job was to recognise where that assumption broke down and correct course before it was built into the product. “There are countless examples where coming in with something has meant we’ve gone down the right road rather than the wrong one,” she added.
Building in, not bolting on
For Martin, the value of RIG lies in when it intervenes, not just how. She has worked in environments where governance input arrives once a product is already finished. The result, in her experience, is inevitably superficial. “The worry would be that it becomes tokenistic. It would almost be a rubber-stamping exercise,” she commented.
The RIG meetings work differently. Materials arrive in advance, giving members time to think before the discussion rather than reacting in the moment. Different perspectives are in the room together, and they do not always agree. “Something I might see as particularly important may be seen as less so elsewhere, and vice versa. I think it’s a more meaningful, authentic way of bringing those perspectives into the discussion.”
She is candid about how that can feel from the other side of the table. When a team has put significant work into a product and a group of external reviewers immediately begins identifying problems, it can sound like criticism. She does not think that framing is quite right.
“It’s very much intended to have those conversations in a way that you can then respond to them,” Martin said.
Data as the real innovation
Martin is clear-eyed about where she believes Thalamos has made its most significant contribution. Before systems like this existed, data about how the Mental Health Act was operating in practice was fragmentary at best. Local Authorities and Mental Health Trusts might collect something, while the government published basic detention statistics. But there was no consistent, comparable picture of what was actually happening to people as they moved through the system.
“We just had bits of paper that floated about. We had no robust, consistent or even large data sets at all. No comparisons across geographical areas, nothing,” she added. What digital infrastructure makes possible is understanding those pathways in real detail: where delays occur, where practice varies, where the system fails the people it is supposed to serve.
“It’s very difficult to bring about change within organisations unless you’ve got some data to say these are the challenges we’re facing. Otherwise it becomes hearsay, or grumbling professionals, as opposed to factual information.”
For Martin, that is the innovation that matters most. Not efficiency for its own sake, but the capacity to finally see what is happening and act on it.
If you’d like to find out more about the structure and process Thalamos Responsible Innovation Group then visit our dedicated webpage or read about its origins in our feature.
