Responsible Innovation Group
The products developed by Thalamos are used in environments where decisions can carry significant legal, clinical and human consequences. They support communication, coordination and decision-making across health, care, policing and wider public services, often at moments when accurate information, clear workflows and trusted processes matter most.
Innovation in these environments brings a particular responsibility. At Thalamos, responsible innovation is not something that happens at the end of development. For us, it means embedding lived experience, clinical safety, legislative compliance and information governance by design. This ensures these perspectives help shape products from the outset, influencing decisions throughout development rather than being considered only at the point of release.
The Thalamos Responsible Innovation Group (RIG) exists to help ensure that responsibility is built into our products and services from the outset. Bringing together expertise across those four key areas, RIG provides challenge, insight and scrutiny throughout the development process, helping ensure innovation is safe, lawful, trustworthy and grounded in real-world practice.
RIG is not a retrospective review panel or a symbolic advisory group. It is an active part of how Thalamos designs, develops and delivers products used across health, care, policing, local government and wider public services. Because when technology supports decisions that affect people, services and outcomes, getting it right matters.
Why we created RIG
It provides a forum to answer critical questions such as:
- Is this safe in the environments where it will be used?
- Does this align with legal duties, powers and safeguards?
- How might this be experienced by the people affected by it?
- Is the use of information proportionate, transparent and trustworthy?
- Could this unintentionally introduce risk, confusion or barriers?
- Does this genuinely improve the experience of services and decision-making?
That process strengthens not only our products, but the trust organisations place in them.
A multi-perspective approach to product design, RIG is built up of four core principles:
Ensuring the experiences of people affected by services, legislation and decision-making processes are considered throughout product design.
This principle helps challenge how workflows, language and digital processes may be experienced by individuals, supporting dignity, involvement, autonomy and trust within the environments where our products are used.
Supporting safe decision-making in complex and high-pressure environments, where seemingly small design choices can have significant consequences.
Clinical safety by design focuses on how systems behave in practice, helping identify avoidable risks, challenge unsafe assumptions and ensure products support professionals effectively in real-world conditions.
Grounding digital workflows in statute, interpreting case law and professional guidance to support accurate application of legal duties, powers and safeguards.
This principle helps ensure products reflect evolving legal frameworks, reduce ambiguity and support accountable, defensible decision-making across complex operational environments.
Building trust into the way sensitive information is used, shared and protected across organisations and services.
Information governance by design ensures governance is practical, proportionate and embedded from the outset, balancing privacy, operational need and public trust while supporting safe and transparent information sharing.
Beyond product development
As Thalamos has grown, the role of RIG has evolved alongside it. The same principles that shape how we design products increasingly help shape how we communicate, build partnerships, use data, contribute to wider conversations and represent ourselves across the sectors we serve.
That includes discussions around:
- The language used in public-facing communications and thought leadership
- How lived experience is reflected in commercial and educational content
- The ethical use and interpretation of operational and system-level data
- How partnerships align with organisational responsibilities and values
- How emerging risks, reforms and operational challenges are discussed publicly
- How Thalamos contributes to conversations about health, care, policing and public service innovation
This reflects a broader belief within Thalamos that responsible innovation is not limited to software development. The way organisations communicate, influence and position themselves can carry just as much weight as the technology they build.
RIG helps ensure those decisions are informed by the same balance of lived experience, clinical safety, legislative compliance and information governance that underpins our products.
Responsible innovation in practice
RIG discussions often focus on areas that traditional software development processes can overlook.
That may include:
- Whether language within a workflow could unintentionally influence decision-making
- Whether a feature supports safe practice in pressured environments
- Whether a digital process reflects legal duties, powers and safeguards
- Whether governance controls are understandable and proportionate
- Whether a workflow reflects how organisations actually operate
- Whether the experience created by technology supports trust, dignity and confidence
This is not about slowing innovation down. It is about ensuring innovation stands up to the environments it is entering.
The result is a development process that is more collaborative, more accountable and more closely connected to the realities of the environments our products support.
Why this matters now
Health, care and public service organisations are operating within increasingly complex legal, operational and information-sharing environments.
Alongside reforms to key parts of health and public safety legislation, organisations are navigating changing expectations around rights, autonomy, transparency, accountability and cross-agency working. At the same time, services continue to face significant operational pressures, workforce challenges and growing demand.
Digital systems will play an increasingly important role in helping organisations respond to these challenges.
That creates both opportunity and responsibility. Technology can improve visibility, coordination, communication and safety across organisations. Poorly designed systems, however, can create friction, confusion, mistrust or unintended consequences.
Meet the RIG members
Responsible innovation depends on more than technical expertise alone. RIG members provide independent perspectives that help challenge assumptions, identify risks and ensure innovation remains connected to the people, services and decisions it is designed to support.
Dr Iain Grant — Clinical safety officer and Consultant Psychiatrist
Iain brings extensive frontline and leadership experience across acute and specialist mental health services. His focus within RIG is ensuring digital systems support safe clinical decision-making in the realities of frontline practice, particularly in pressured environments where small design decisions can have significant consequences.
Steve Gilbert OBE — Lived experience expert and mental health advocate
Steve brings national policy experience alongside lived experience of detention under the Mental Health Act. His work focuses on ensuring systems are designed around the experiences of the people affected by them, with particular attention to dignity, language, involvement, trust and how digital processes are experienced in practice.
Dr Debbie Martin — Mental health law expert and educator
Debbie brings decades of experience in mental health law practice, education and statutory training. Within RIG, she helps ensure products are grounded in statute, interpreting case law and professional guidance, enabling accurate application of legal duties and safeguards to support patient safety and defensible decision-making.
Gabrielle Epstein — Data Protection Officer and former NHS Director of Information
Gabrielle brings extensive experience in NHS data governance, public trust and digital transformation. Her focus within RIG is ensuring governance is practical, proportionate and enabling, while helping ensure systems are understandable, trustworthy and designed around safe information use from the outset.
Responsible innovation is ongoing
RIG is not a one-off exercise or a fixed checklist. It is an ongoing process of challenge, reflection and collaboration that continues as products evolve, legislation changes and services adapt.
That is because responsible innovation is not simply about what technology can do. It is about what technology should do, who it affects, and how it behaves in the moments that matter most.
RIG members provide independent challenge and expertise to Thalamos across product development, governance and wider organisational discussions.
Their participation in RIG does not necessarily imply endorsement of all products, communications, partnerships or positions adopted by Thalamos. The views expressed by Thalamos do not necessarily reflect the views of individual RIG members.
