The Trust’s Clinical Research Unit (CRU) at the Warneford Hospital has been awarded funding as part of a partnership bid between Oxford Health NHS FT, the University of Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry and Oxford University Hospitals Trust. The bid for research funding was led by Professor John Geddes, Associate Medical Director (R&D) for the Trust and involved staff from the Trust as well as our partner organisations. The bid involves all three organisations working in partnership to provide clinical research facilities across various sites in Oxford.

£3.75m of research funding was awarded to the Trust and our partners by the National Institute for Health Research. The funding will support the growth of the CRU facilities at the Warneford as well as facilities at the John Radcliffe Hospital and South Parks Road, Oxford. The money will also be used to employ a range of clinical research staff including nurses, doctors and scientists. Research will be carried out in areas such as communication impairments in children, social anxiety disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, depression, schizophrenia and stroke.

Professor John Geddes commented on the award, “Cognitive and mental disorders are among the most important causes of global suffering. Developing effective therapies and preventative strategies is challenging for all healthcare providers and any advances in our understanding require the best basic and clinical scientists to work together in the best facilities. The key objective of the partnership is to generate a step-change in the translation of neuroscience discoveries into benefits for patients.”

Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley said: “The public and patients think it’s important that the NHS should support research into new treatments, and we agree. That’s why we’re investing over £100m in research facilities, nurses and technicians to help make the NHS a world-class place to do research.

“These researchers will push forward the boundaries of what is possible. These are the people and the facilities where the very best new treatments will be developed for a huge range of conditions – from cancer to diabetes and heart disease. NHS patients are the ones who will see the benefit of their work.”

We are looking forward to working with our partners to develop the CRU and other facilities to improve outcomes for patients based on research.