James’ Place Transform Suicide Prevention Services with Microsoft Dynamics 365 & the Power Platform

James’ Place is a pioneering UK suicide prevention charity, supporting men in suicidal crisis through specialist talking therapy. With centres in Liverpool, London, Newcastle and a new centre opening in Birmingham, the charity is expanding rapidly to reach more people in need. To continue delivering high-quality care at scale, they recognised the need to replace their inflexible and inefficient systems with a purpose-built digital solution.

The charity partnered with Pragmatiq to design and implement a bespoke solution using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform, transforming how the charity manages referrals, care delivery, and reporting — ultimately improving efficiency, consistency, and outcomes for those in crisis.

The Challenges

Inflexible legacy system: Their previous clinical management tool, HeyDoc, lacked the flexibility and automation they needed. It was expensive, hard to tailor, and unable to support their evolving needs. Staff also relied heavily on spreadsheets, Outlook inboxes, and paper-based tracking, resulting in information silos and inefficiencies.
Referral management: Referrals come in from several channels; self-referral via the website, professional referrals from medical network, walk-ins, etc. These were manually managed via a comprehensive spreadsheet which was updated daily, passed onto the relevant staff and input manually into their previous system.

“Before Dynamics, we used a combination of an IMS system, spreadsheets and even paper-based processes. It wasn’t sustainable. We were doing things twice – recording data on spreadsheets as well as in the system. I had to put my foot down and say: we don’t need to do two things anymore.” – James’ Place

Survey management: Referral questionnaires were sent to clients and completed manually, with all follow-up work tracked outside the system.
Limited reporting capabilities: With data scattered across systems, producing meaningful reports was difficult and time-consuming.
Lack of automation and guidance: Tasks such as sending GP letters or internal updates were often forgotten or delayed, creating further inefficiencies and potential risks.
Scaling challenges: As James’ Place expanded to new centres, the absence of standardised processes and data accessibility made it harder to scale effectively and maintain quality of care.

The Solution

Custom Power App: A bespoke referral and episode management system was developed leveraging Microsoft Power Apps.
Automated Referral Process: Referrals can be submitted through a Microsoft Customer Voice form on James’ Place website – whether from the individual, a GP, or family member – and are automatically created in the system for follow-up.
Episode of Care Management: Each referral is triaged and, if appropriate, becomes an ‘episode of care’. The system tracks every step, from initial engagement through to successful discharge.

“The system is customised to our processes, and we have dropdown options on fields when it comes to tracking our risk assessments. This means the transition from one session to the next is smooth, which is key when a therapist can see up to five men in suicidal crisis a day.” – James’ Place

Customer Voice for Core-10 surveys: Regular wellbeing surveys (aligned with NHS standards) are sent throughout the client’s care journey, providing insight into their mental health and helping to guide therapeutic support. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is used to send these, connecting seamlessly with client records so all information is tracked in one place.
Stakeholder Management: The system records key stakeholders – including GPs, referrers, and other professionals – linked to each case.
Built-in Risk Assessment Tools: We built a specific risk assessment model into the system, allowing therapists to assess and track risk levels session-by-session, without relying on external forms or memory.
Activity & SLA Tracking: Automated workflows ensure key service-level criteria are met, with dashboards highlighting any overdue or at-risk engagements.
Twilio Integration: Enables the charity to send SMS reminders to clients, helping reduce missed appointments and improve engagement.
Automation & Guidance: Built-in automation helps guide therapists through each step of the care journey, reducing reliance on memory or external reminders.
Microsoft Power BI: Microsoft Power BI was integrated to consolidate data across all centres, providing clear, visual dashboards that track referrals, care delivery, and outcomes. This gives staff and leadership real-time access to the information they need to monitor performance and inform strategic decisions.

“With Power BI, we’re able to look at trends across centres and understand things like what day of the week we have more referrals on, which can then inform decisions we are making when opening new centres. Additionally, we can easily demonstrate to our funders where their money is being used and the life-changing impact it is having.” – James’ Place

The Outcomes

Improved efficiency: Manual processes such as referral intake, survey distribution, and GP letters are now automated, reducing admin burden and allowing therapists to focus on care.
Single source of truth: By centralising all information related to various areas of the service delivery process, James’ Place now have a single source of truth and are no longer reliant on spreadsheets and disparate systems. This gives every team member confidence that they are working from up-to-date, complete, and accurate information.
Improved therapist performance and capacity: Therapists are able to support more men per day without compromising on quality, due to reduced system friction.
Standardised service delivery: The platform ensures all staff follow the same care pathway, helping maintain a consistent and high-quality service.
Greater visibility: Power BI provides real-time dashboards and reporting, enabling the team to track appointments, SLAs, and overall service delivery across centres.

“Power BI helps me spot trends, like when a therapist might need extra support. The data is laid out in a really clear and easy-to-understand way. As part of my role, I also support our other centres in Newcastle and London, and I can do exactly the same reporting there as I do in Liverpool, it’s really straightforward.” – James’ Place

Support for growth: The system is scalable and flexible, giving James’ Place a strong digital foundation to open new centres and reach more people in crisis.

“We can now talk to funders about exactly how much it costs to deliver an intervention, from first contact to final GP letter. We’re also able to assign value to each part of our process and build accurate financial projections for opening new centres. It really has been game-changing in lots of ways for us.” – James’ Place

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Have a look at what our clients says...

“Before partnering with Pragmatiq, our organisation was previously working with a healthcare platform that did not meet our needs. We found it difficult to report on key data and we were not able to report on or identify performance metrics. We had to have our own back-up systems and would spend a great deal of admin time getting information into the system. We knew that we could be more efficient with the right solution, especially with significant growth plans on the horizon around opening new centres across England.

Pragmatiq worked closely with us to understand our needs and implemented a solution that is tailored to our unique processes. We have seen improvements across various areas in the organisation as a result, but crucially, this system has streamlined our referral process. The feedback from both therapy and admin colleagues has been universally positive. We continually aim to evidence that our service is both safe and effective for the men in our care, and our new system has made that substantially easier.

We have found Pragmatiq easy to work with and are really pleased with our system, so would be happy to recommend them to other organisations.”

Jane Boland Head of James’ Place Liverpool and Clinical Lead

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