Past Outcomes & Findings

The purpose of research within the NHS is to provide an evidence base supporting the best provision of service to our communities.

The Department of Health conducts annual reviews of the work taking place in the Trust and we have consistently received the highest rating across all programmes. In addition, each year numerous publications by Trust staff appear in international peer-reviewed publications.

Research at the Trust has focused on the work of three successful research units in forensic psychiatry (led by Prof. Jeremy Coid), psychiatric nursing (Prof. Alan Simpson) and social and community psychiatry (Prof. Stefan Priebe). It also supported a wide range of other research activities.

Most activities are conducted in collaboration with the academic partners at Barts and the London School of Medicine & Dentistry, Queen Mary, University of London, and City University.

A significant part of the research is conducted in international collaboration with a range of academic partners, mainly but not exclusively in Europe.  Information on studies which took place in the Trust  is available on this website.

The work of the research groups has influenced public and professional debates on policy and clinical issues in mental health care on local, national and international levels. There are several on-going debates that have been sparked and informed by research in the Trust:

  • The research on using financial incentives to improve medication adherence has received wide attention, in the last year with interviews in the BBC and several media reports in connection with the opening of a centre for the studies of financial incentives to shape health behaviour (on which Priebe is a collaborator);
  • other examples for such debates are self-harm by inpatients on acute psychiatric wards;
  • the most appropriate care for serious violent and sexual offenders;
  • the implications of hazardous drinking; and
  • the future of mental health care - nationally and internationally - in the light of trends towards 're-institutionalisation' that has been shown across various countries in central and western Europe.

The impact of our research on policy and practice on these issues is rather indirect and difficult to distinguish from the effects of other contributions to the same debates.

In other areas, however, it is possible to identify some direct impact of our research on health services and policy. 

Major achievements are listed in the Annual Reports to the Department of Health, whilst the more indirect benefits are explained in the Research Strategy.

Additionally, there are some direct benefits to patients in East London. There are several services that were not specifically developed for research, but without the input of research would either not have been initiated or probably not exist anymore. These include:

  • The acute day hospital in Newham, which has been shown to be more effective than conventional in-patient care and led to plans for similar services in Hackney and Tower Hamlets, which however the commissioners have not yet decided to fund.
  • The DBT (dialectical-behaviour therapy) Service for patients with Borderline Personality Disorder in Newham, which is currently being evaluated in a rigorous trial. The study prompted the NHS to fund increased capacity of the service.
  • Non-verbal therapies, which were studied in two trials in the Trust. A successful study on Body Psychotherapy in the treatment of negative symptoms of schizophrenia contributed the NICE recommendation for such therapies and influenced the strategy for non-verbal therapies of the Trust. The strategy is being implemented, and commissioners in Tower Hamlets have decided to fund it.