Health Psychologists across the UK have come together to make a difference, to ensure all health & social care professionals have access to health psychology, knowledge and skills during COVID-19. Dr Lucie Byrne-Davis and Professor Jo Hart from The University of Manchester, along with Dr Angel Chater from the University of Bedfordshire, have established Health Psychology Exchange, a volunteering collaborative of over 115 members.

Health Psychology Exchange (HPX) is already working with a number of county and city councils providing behavioural science input for public health advice. As part of this, they are providing rapid/scoping reviews of evidence for councils and government, pre-prints of two are now available – reflective practice in a crisis and uptake/engagement with track & trace apps. HPX are supporting public health teams to use behavioural science in their communications and working with councils and non-governmental organisations to help maintain a psychologically healthy workforce during the pandemic and prevent psychological injury in this uncertain time. They have created a flyer about who they are, their members work, and how they can help, this flyer is circulating to NHS & social care stakeholders nationally.

As well as extending health psychology knowledge outside of the community, HPX is also providing a point of contact for health psychology researchers conducting COVID-19 research, for example: factors influencing adherence to prevention behaviours and adjustment to social distancing. Volunteers are supporting each other during the pandemic. A member of HPX recently wrote an article for the British Psychological Society magazine, The Psychologist, about the importance of HPX for themselves and the profession.

Dr Lucie Byrne-Davis, Professor Jo Hart and Professor Chris Armitage from the University of Manchester are also volunteering for the British Psychological Society COVID-19 Behavioural Science and Disease Prevention Taskforce. This team is developing policy advice, based on the psychology of behaviour to advise public health policy. You can read the first policy brief from this British Psychological Society Taskforce on their website.

For more information

• You can follow Health Psychology Exchange on Twitter at @HealthPsychX
• Read the preprints:Rapid Review: Reflective Practice in Crisis Situations by HPX and Scoping review of mobile phone app uptake and engagement to inform digital contact tracing tools for COVID-19 by HPX