http://www.nht.nhs.uk

Key individuals

• Dr Alex O’Neill-Kerr - Medical Director,  R&D lead
• Lauren Sayers - Research & Development Manager.
• Rachel Lovesy - CLAHRC Coordinator.

There are currently two Research Networks operating within NHFT, The Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) and the Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network (DeNDRoN), both of which support NIHR Portfolio Research.

Research Structures
NHFT has a Research Strategy which was formulated in 2009, this outlines NHFT’s aims for Research within the Trust. Prior to the appointment of Lauren Sayers as Clinical Studies Officer for the MHRN research was often carried out by students, rather than being Clinician led. However Lauren was able to set up a number of Portfolio research projects and thus increased the capacity in the trust to both support and conduct high quality Health Research. DeNDRoN simultaneously contributed to the development of NIHR Research through increasing the number of studies from the portfolio and recruiting to these. Since then, Lauren has become Research & Development Manager during which time she has created a firm set of guidelines and structures for research within the Trust at the same time as supporting and encouraging participation and engagement with the likes of CLAHRC, the MHRN and DeNDRoN. More information can be found on the research and development pages of the NHFT internet site.  

Research is an ever growing presence within NHFT and CLAHRC have been supporting the Trust in identifying their own research priorities and ensuring staff are skilled to carry out research and service evaluation through training. CLAHRC also promotes collaboration with academic institutions to ensure research conducted is of priority and use to the NHS Organisation. This includes forming strong links with the University of Northampton and their Centre of Health and Wellbeing for Research (CHWR) based within the Health Sciences department.

CLAHRC Activity

• Pharmacy Support to Community Mental Health Teams – Trust Team 
• Screening Adults for possible Autism Spectrum Disorder – CLAHRC Funded Applied Health Research Project – prevention them 
• Business Case Template Review

Next Steps

• The CLAHRC Coordinator, Rachel Lovesy, is working with a number of project teams to support bids for external funding with the aim for them to be adopted onto the NIHR portfolio.
• Work is being undertaken to encourage and support the Trust in conducting Service Evaluations.
• A comprehensive Research Training Programme has been created for all NHFT staff to assist in building the capacity of Trust staff to conduct and support Research and Implementing Evidence.

News
Recently, Northamptonshire Provider Services have joined NHFT from NHS Northamptonshire (the local PCT) through the ‘Transforming Community Services’ initiative.

News from NHFT can be seen on the news pages of the Trust website