R&I Improving Healthcare

ELFT’s unique service user and carer research group (PoPuLar) has successfully completed two co-produced research study projects.

First, the PRIDE study (Curwen et al. Research Involvement and Engagement, 2019, 5:5) was planned, conducted and published in collaboration between service users, clinicians and researchers and may be the first-time service users actually not only defined the research topic but were also trained to become the research assistants and conducted the qualitative analysis.  A paper from the second study, entitled Advance Directives as a care planning tool for service users with complex mental health needs - a service evaluation has been submitted for peer-reviewed publication to the British Journal of Psychiatry Bulletin.

The 20+ PoPuLar team are supported by experts from both the Trust and academics from City University. Some group alumni have gone on to secure roles with South London & the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and McPin Foundation from the confidence they have developed.

Building on the existing model developed at ELFT, PoPuLaR+ will expand these activities across the Northeast London Integrated Care System (ICS) and will promote lived-experience informed and initiated research, support service users and carers to become active members of this group. Members will design, conduct, analyse and disseminate research that is led by service users and carers that suits their strengths and present this work to others.  The aim to create a dynamic and inclusive environment for mental health research that reflects the diverse experiences and needs of service users / carers and contributes to improving health and social inclusion / wellbeing outcomes across the region.

The Barnsley Street Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre plays a vital role in transforming local mental health care as part of Tower Hamlets’ selection by NHS England to pilot one of six new 24/7 mental health support centres nationally. This national pilot aims to ensure people can access mental health input exactly when they need it—reducing the risk of becoming very unwell, avoiding unnecessary A&E attendance, and preventing hospital admissions wherever possible.

Serving residents registered at five Bethnal Green GP practices, the centre provides accessible, person‑centred support without the need for formal referrals. People can drop in or be directed by their GP to receive timely help from a multidisciplinary team including psychiatrists, nurses, OTs, psychologists, social workers, voluntary sector partners, and peer support workers. For those needing short-term stabilisation, the centre offers up to six guest beds for overnight stays.

The site, owned by Look Ahead, has specialist support staff available 24/7 to welcome visitors and provide continuous care. In partnership with the local authority, the Trust provides clinical staff and social workers, while third sector organisations from the Tower Hamlets Community Mental Health Alliance offer employment support, social activities and community engagement opportunities. As the service progresses toward opening 8am–8pm for planned sessions, it provides a flexible, inclusive model that brings mental health care closer to home.

Through integrated partnership working and accessible, around‑the‑clock support, the Barnsley Street Neighbourhood Mental Health Centre strengthens community wellbeing, promotes earlier intervention, and creates a more responsive, preventative local mental health system.

The hub was recently featured on The One Show.

ELFT has hosted several research prestigious grants in recent years, often awarded to Chief Investigators who are early career and/or in new clinical areas, including: 

• In July 2025 the seven-year ERA trial, funded by the NIHR’s Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme, completed. The trial, led by Dr Catherine Carr of Queen Mary, University of London, tested the effectiveness of Arts therapies (art, music or dance-movement) delivered in groups for community patients. It is the largest and most methodologically rigorous trial conducted on Arts therapies in community mental health settings to date and was mainly run in ELFT.
• In November 2024, Dr Philip McNamee completed work on a study funded by a grant from the NIHR Invention for Innovation (i4i) programme to develop a system of remote delivery for the DIALOG+ intervention for patients with psychosis, and to see if such a method of delivery is feasible.
• In December 2024, Dr Mary Lavelle at Queen’s University Belfast completed a study, funded by an NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) grant seeking to identify the staff communication that characterises successful de-escalation of patients displaying aggressive behaviour in acute mental health settings, avoiding the need to use physical restraint (held to prevent movement), seclusion (locked in isolation) and forced tranquilisation (involuntarily injected with psychotropic medication).
• Finally, Consultant Paediatrician Michelle Heys has been awarded grants from a) The Barts & The London Charity for a study focused on engaging unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; and b) the Paul Foundation to explore evaluating autism online in an ethnically diverse population of children and young people, and c) from the ELFT Charity to help families in Newham suffering financial hardship to claim on average more than £17,000 per family in additional benefits income.

Overall, ELFT is currently managing over £5.5 million in active research grants, including:

• Dr Afia Ali from QMUL’s Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, was awarded £2.5m over five years for a programme seeking to improve quality of life and behaviour that challenges in people with mild to moderate intellectual disability through person-centred solution-focused communication (ICONIC).
• The Trust has been awarded £2.7m over five years to develop and trial a highly innovative peer supported group clinic intervention intended to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in people with severe mental illness (PEGASUS). Emulating the integrated care systems model, this study is a collaboration of experts in acute, primary, and mental health care, and the study design was developed based upon innovative change ideas from ELFT clinicians.
• Most recently, ELFT is managing a £291k NIHR Research for Patient Benefit grant “Emotional and Language recovery in Aphasia (ELA): a feasibility study developing a novel intervention for people living with post-stroke aphasia” led by Sarah Northcott of City St Georges, University of London.

In line with our Trust values, ELFT is at the forefront of promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in our research, nominating an EDI Lead for Research in 2024/25.  In this role, Rahul Bhattacharya has attended the national UKRD Inclusion symposium in July 2024 linking up with other members of the EDI research community, and has since been appointed to the UKRD Inclusion Working Group (December 2024).

Within ELFT he has regularly shared findings of recent research linked to EDI at appropriate platforms to ensure latest learnings from these influence service delivery, trust strategy and policy, presenting to the trust EDI board (early 2024) and PCREF (Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework) working group (Jan 2025). 

The North London Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN) viewed this pilot as a success, continuing to fund the post in 2025/26 and Rahul has been appointed to lead their regional EDI working group.

In 2024/25, facilitated through the academic partnership between ELFT and the University of Cambridge, we successfully re-launched the Bedfordshire and Luton (B&L) Research Hub to increase research capacity, embed a culture of collaborative research, and improve representation. During its first year, the hub has successfully brought together research-enthusiastic staff across the region with some notable successes including: research activities. The hub intends to foster integrated research across the traditional boundaries of physical and mental health care.

• Co-designed a research engagement plan with established CYP social prescriber link workers and piloted ‘Research Champions’, who underwent bespoke CYP mental health training to engage with the diverse communities in Luton in CYP health.
• Menopause and Mental Health pilot service funded by the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) ICS to raise awareness among both the workforce and service users, while improving clinical services for women in the premenopausal and menopausal stages of life.
• B&L memory team has now embarked on their first commercial trial Five-lives that is exploring the use of an app to boost brain health and improve cognition.
• Raised the research profile at ELFT and collaboration in Bedfordshire including constructing our own local priorities which have informed the development of the BLMK ICS research strategy “pillars”.

Healthcare research played a vital role during the coronavirus pandemic – from trials exploring ways to treat the disease, manage the contagion, and develop and test a vaccine, to dealing with the aftermath and inevitable impact on our mental health. 

As the nationally prioritised studies were designed to take place in acute hospital settings, some of our researchers volunteered to redeploy to NHS Nightingale, St Barts and The Royal London to support that work. 

ELFT staff were also proactive in designing COVID-related studies. 

Jo Beckmann, a consultant paediatrician, worked with Public Health England to design the sKIDs study to examine the outbreak and prevalence of COVID-19 in schools, and our nursing and research staff were critical in its delivery.  Their findings in Newham from June/July ‘20 contributed significantly to general reopening of schools in the autumn.   

In an example of the benefits of our university partnerships, Frank Röhricht, Medical Director for Research & Innovation, worked in collaboration with Prof Rose McCabe at City University and Prof Renos Papadopoulos at University of Essex to design a survey to find out how the pandemic challenges have affected NHS staff in both positive and negative ways. 

The pandemic caused a pause to non-COVID work during the first wave. Subsequently, however, most studies adapted their methods to ensure that they could take place safely. For example, meetings or therapies which were usually face-to-face were moved online or over the phone, where possible.