Skip to content

Accessibility

Professor Karina Lovell blogs about our mental health work


Find all our latest news, events, media and blogs.

 

To keep up to date follow the NIHR ARC-GM Twitter account @ARC_GM_

Professor Karina Lovell blogs about our mental health work

Professor Karina Lovell is joint theme lead of our patient-centred care theme, as well as Director of Research and Professor of Mental Health at The University of Manchester’s School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work (SNMSW). Karina has recently been awarded a British Council grant that supports a programme of knowledge exchange between the University of Manchester and the Hamad Medical Corporation in Qatar which will allow both institutions to develop programmes of work related to physical and mental health multimorbidity. Here she blogs about CLAHRC Greater Manchester’s mental health work so far and the bright future ahead. 

Professor Karina Lovell.
Professor Karina Lovell.

Our patient-centred care theme has had a busy few months leading up to the new academic year in September 2014.

The dynamic, multidisciplinary theme is spread between the Centre for Primary Care, the SNMSW and Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. We work on a number of projects related to physical and mental health multimorbidity. A key project includes work to support roll-out and spread of the CLAHRC GM funded Collaborative Interventions for Circulation and Depression (COINCIDE) care model. The team will soon begin a round of training psychologists employed by participating Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services. This training programme will run until March 2015, after which IAPT capacity to deliver integrated care for people with depression and long-term conditions will be greatly enhanced. The team will undertake a mixed-method service evaluation to determine benefits to service users and the wider health economy. A grant application to support a wider-scale evaluation with IAPT partners across the UK has recently been shortlisted by the The Health Foundation.

In addition to the COINCIDE implementation study, the patient-centred care theme team has been conducting a 24-month follow-up for the original trial participants to provide long-term efficacy and cost-effectiveness information to support the original randomised controlled trial, which was completed as part of CLAHRC GM 2008-2013.

The team also supports the roll out of the integrated service user pathway focussing on improving the physical health of people with severe and enduring mental illness (SMI), across Manchester Mental Health and Social Care Trust. The team is working with all six of the Trusts Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs) to develop the Community Physical Health Coordinator role to liaise, coordinate and improve the physical health management of people who are under the joint care of the CMHTs and GPs.

Claire Fraser, who has been working as a Research Associate and Trial Manager on the NIHR EQUIP programme grant, has enrolled as a CLAHRC GM PhD student to explore the relationship between physical health and serious mental illnesses. Her work aims to ensure that physical health management is better integrated into serious mental health services.

In the near future, Isabel Adeyemi will be joining the patient-centred care theme as a CLAHRC GM funded PhD student, supervised by Dr Peter Coventry, along with Dr Sarah Knowles and Professor Chris Armitage. Isabel worked with CLAHRC GM during our initial funding phase with great distinction and we are delighted to welcome her back. Her PhD will focus on exploring whether theory based behaviour change interventions can promote physical activity in people with physical and mental multimorbidity.

 

Date Published: 07/10/2014

Please complete the following form to download this item:


Once submitting your information you will be presented with a new 'Download' button to gain access to the resource.