Projects

Read more about our work that aims to support people living with severe mental ill-health

We’re leading and supporting research reducing the health inequalities experienced by people living with severe mental ill-health (SMIH).

Collaborating with community members, system leaders, people with lived experience of SMIH and their families and carers, we seek to better support people to live longer, live better and thrive in the community. We aim to create impact by preventing both worsening physical and mental health, or relapse or (re)admission to in-patient settings.

Key NIHR-funded projects include:

WHOLE-SMI – Wellbeing and HOListic health promotion for people with Severe Mental Ill-health

Led by Professor Emily Oliver, the three-year WHOLE-SMI study focused on how we can better implement physical health promotion services for people living with severe mental ill-health. Delivered by a collaboration across the Three Schools’ Mental Health Programme, key outputs include:

• WHOLE-SMI Policy Brief: Health Promotion for people living with severe mental ill-health (co-created with Research Retold)
• Research Article: Enhancing physical health support for people living with severe mental ill-health: Understanding the implementation landscape | Research Square
• Commentary: ‘Severe mental illness’: Uses of this term in physical health support policy, primary care practice, and academic discourses in the United Kingdom

Pictured: A graphic illustration of the needs of people living with SMIH, co-produced with our Community Advisory Group, made up of an expert panel of lived experience:

This research project was funded as part of the Three NIHR Research Schools Mental Health Programme.​

ACCESS- SMI – ACCElerating Services and Support to improve physical health of people living with severe mental ill-health

Led by Dr Fiona Duncan, and building on WHOLE-SMI, ACCESS is offering targeted and in-depth dissemination with healthcare leaders to support them in developing their existing services and resources, or by implementing new services that meet people’s needs.  We are also capturing some of the best evidence-based implementation practices nationally, and other locally contextualised efforts. This work is funded by the Three Schools’ Mental Health Programme.

You can find out more about this work at a national conference in March: Implementation of physical health services for people living with SMI Tickets, Tue, Mar 24, 2026 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite

A compendium of evidence-based good implementation practices and locally contextualised adaptations is also currently in development.

Project RADICAL – Better Research Advocacy and Involvement for Communities with Severe MentAL Ill-health

Led by Dan Steward, RADICAL examines learning about how best to involve and engage people living with severe mental illness in research. This work is seeking to better capture and promote best practices of public engagement, learn from areas identified where things could be improved, consider how we can improve engagement participation from other groups of people in our community, and how we can promote and support long-term sustainable advocacy groups from our public contributor members beyond research project lifecycles.

This research project was funded as part of the NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR).​

PATHS to prevention: A co-designed Physical Activity pathway to support the Transition from inpatient to community mental Health Settings 

Led by Dr Benjamin Rigby and Phil Hodgson, PATHS explores how to support people to be physically active when they move from inpatient mental ill-health care back into the community. We aim to develop an intervention (especially for places where there is little or no support) that addresses the physical activity needs of people returning back to the community after an inpatient stay to help prevent relapse and readmission, whilst also improving physical health.

This project is funded by the NIHR Three Research Schools Prevention Research Programme.

If you’d like to find out more about any of this work, please email [email protected]