Research Hero of the Month - March 2024

This month we take the opportunity to celebrate the staff who have contributed to the delivery of the UK MINDS project.

This month we take the opportunity to celebrate the staff who have contributed to the delivery of the UK MINDS project within the trust over the past six months. The success of this project at LYPFT is truly a result of a team effort, and we would like to thank everyone involved along the way.

About NCMH…..

UK MINDS is a nationwide research project that aims to collect information about people’s environment, lifestyle, and biology and is a collaboration between the National Centre for Mental Health (NCMH) and Akrivia Health. The project aims to push forward understanding of why some people experience problems with their mental and cognitive health.

Admin

We would first like to recognise those staff who have enabled the smooth running of the project, without them this research would not have been possible. Thank you especially to Sinead Audsley, Crystal Romain-Hooper and Zara Brining for all their help behind the scenes.

Someone particularly deserving of the research hero title is Caroline, CMHT Administrator. Caroline has gone above and beyond in supporting the various needs and challenges of the project, including assisting with courier collections, room bookings and providing a warm approach to our participants on reception.

Caroline stated this: ‘It was a pleasure to work alongside the research and development team, they are all so dedicated to their work and to the research they are conducting. I was always proud of how caring towards the service users they all were. Their field is not one that often gets the recognition for the hard work they put in, but I have seen this first hand. Keep it up ladies’

Memory nurses

The memory nurse team are always a huge support in referring service users to research, and the UK Minds project benefitted greatly from their enthusiasm and willingness. By including research opportunities at post-discharge support visits, the memory nurses helped to bring research into the clinical journey and engaged service users in UK Minds from the outset.

 

Clozapine staff

Ongoing support from the trust’s clozapine staff has been incredibly valuable to the project, as they helped research staff with competency sign-off and welcomed us to attend clinics to approach eligible participants. This allowed us to deliver the study efficiently and embedded into the clinical care of these service users.

Aspire

We would also like to acknowledge the Aspire team for their contribution to UK Minds recruitment. This collaboration meant we could widen the offer of the project to a different service area, allowing us to engage many of their service users in their first experiences of participating in research.