£11m programme aims to strengthen mental health care in South West England

New research led by the University of Plymouth will explore ways to improve services for people in need across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, also influencing positive change for the UK and beyond.

The programme involves academic partners from King’s College London, NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre NIHR ARC South West Peninsula (PenARC), University of Exeter, and the McPin Foundation. 

A five-year £11 million initiative will explore why care and support services for people with mental health conditions are not working as effectively and efficiently as they could, and how experiences for individuals, communities and staff could be improved. 

Through this, the programme team intends to develop and test solutions that ensure people are able to get the help they need, when they need it. 

The programme is one of five additional Mental Health Research Groups (MHRGs) being created through an investment of almost £55 million by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). 

It is being led by researchers at the University of Plymouth’s Community and Primary Care Research Centre (CPCRC), working with colleagues from the School of Psychology, the Plymouth Business School and CIDER (Cornwall for Intellectual Disability Equitable Research). 

NIHR Maudsley BRC to contribute Informatics expertise

The NIHR Maudsley BRC will provide support through Informatics expertise, advising on local health records data infrastructure.

Professor Rob Stewart, Deputy Theme Lead of the BRC’s Informatics theme and Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Clinical Informatics, King’s IoPPN, said: 

“It’s great to be working on this opportunity to increase mental health research capability and capacity at the University of Plymouth. With the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) team and other colleagues at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, I’m particularly looking forward to helping Plymouth assemble their excellent health records resources to achieve better services and clinical care.” 

Dr Ewan Carr, Reader in Biostatistics, King’s IoPPN, said:  

“This programme provides an important opportunity to build robust, joined-up data infrastructure, while also strengthening local analytical capacity. Bringing together routine records, free-text data and advanced analytics will help develop the skills, tools and evidence base needed to support better system-level decision-making and improve mental health care in the long term.” 

Professor Barbara Barrett, Head of King’s Health Economics and Deputy Head, Health Service and Population Research Department, King’s College London, said:  

“I’m excited to be building these new connections with health economists at the University of Plymouth. By focusing on mentoring, networking, and collaborative workshops and journal clubs, we hope to help grow the region’s research skills and capacity.” 

Broad partnership to include patients, community groups and voluntary sector organisations

The Mental Health Research Group will involve people accessing mental health services and community groups providing mutual support, as well as voluntary sector organisations and social and primary care providers. The four main NHS mental healthcare organisations – Livewell South West, the Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, Devon Partnership NHS Trust and Cornwall Foundation Trust – are also key partners.   

This broad partnership will work together to agree priorities and to design the research. This collaborative embedded way of working is designed to ensure a focus on problems on the ground so that results can be fed back rapidly to decision makers and put into practice. 

Professor Richard Byng, who leads the University of Plymouth’s Mental Health Research Group, said:

“In recent years, our work with local partners has shown there are significant challenges for our health system, as it was not set up to manage the numbers of people coming forward with requests for help. Mental health staff and people seeking support tell us that there are problems which need addressing, such as rejections following referral, repeated assessments and sudden discharges. Alongside this, the strengths of people seeking support, as well as community and digital assets, are not fully recognised as key parts of the whole system. We will work with people across our community and staff in services to explore what is working well and less well, building the capacity to make better decisions. This programme is well aligned both with the concerns of communities and with NHS policy – our aim is to help mental health services function well for everyone in the future.” 

Key priorities for the NIHR MHRG at the University of Plymouth 

The programme builds on work carried out across the South West over the past two decades, and its aim will be to expand the scale and scope of mental health research expertise in the region. 

It will focus on communities in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, initially centred around a set of research projects that pay particular attention to groups who face challenges in accessing current mental health provision, including: 

• People with serious mental health problems, who often don’t get the specialist support they need; 

• People with intellectual disabilities, so we can share information about medications in fair and accessible ways; 

• University students, for whom a range of opportunities outside of formal services may be important; 

• Communities where there is potential to improve how people support themselves and each other without needing to see a professional. 

The researchers will also explore how advances in app technology might help people to understand and manage their mental health better, also enabling them to share information with services so they don't have to repeat their story every time they see someone new. 

Dr Rebecca Hardwick, NIHR South West Peninsula ARC (PenARC) Senior Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth and co-lead for the new programme added:

“Over the last three years we have worked with lots of people to develop these ideas. This includes people with mental health problems and those who care for them, and professionals who see patients or who decide what services should be provided. All those conversations and meetings have helped us focus our research and think about tricky but important issues like ethics and equality. It has enabled us to develop a programme that will include lots of ways for lots of people to get involved – with some advising, some collecting and analysing data, and some sharing findings.” 

A national investment in mental health research 

The areas targeted by the NIHR for this funding have high levels of mental health problems, for example, some have higher suicide rates, or higher levels of deprivation and severe mental health diagnoses. 

The new MHRGs will lead on research to reduce inequalities in mental health provision, reaching people who rarely take part in research studies, and the research will be embedded in local communities and focused on locally-identified mental health priorities. 

Successful applicants had to show clearly how they had worked with local community or patient groups, as well as other stakeholders, to identify these priorities. 

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and Chief Executive Officer of the NIHR, said:

“Mental health challenges can be isolating, especially for people in some of our most under-served regions. Community allows us to tackle isolation. By moving our research focus out of traditional clinical settings and directly into the areas where people live and work, we are driving a fundamental shift toward a more preventative model of care in the community. We are committed to ensuring that the latest innovations and support reach those who need it most, long before they reach a crisis point.”