
In this section, you will find the current research being carried out at the North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT).
Please refer to the following website and use the corresponding IRAS number for more information about these studies — Health Research Authority, Research summaries
IRAS# 345110
Summary: This Epilepsy Research Database is focussed on building an ongoing evidence base evaluating the outcomes of Anti-Epileptic Drugs and epilepsy treatments for people with Intellectual Disability (ID) and/or Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD such as Autism). This involves collecting data for all people with epilepsy (Those with and without an ID and/or PDD). All patients currently or previously prescribed an Anti-Epileptic Drug (or epilepsy treatment) which is part of a live arm of the Research Database Register are therefore eligible to participate
Chief Investigator: Dr Rohit Shankar
Principal Investigator: Anna Cattrell
IRAS #311434
Summary: Mental health rehabilitation services provide specialist treatment to people with particularly severe and complex problems. These services include inpatient units and supported accommodation in the community. When people have access to local rehabilitation services, most gain the skills to manage with less support over time, progressing from inpatient care to supported accommodation. However, over the last 15 years there have been major cuts to NHS rehabilitation services across England and increasing reliance on the independent sector. The Care Quality Commission reported in 2018 that over half the 4400 mental health inpatient rehabilitation beds in England were provided by the independent sector. They raised concerns that people were staying twice as long compared to people treated in NHS rehabilitation units and they were much further from their home. However, we do not know whether the services provided by the NHS and independent sector differ in quality or patient outcomes. There have been no studies investigating the effectiveness of inpatient rehabilitation services that have included the independent sector. This project, funded by the NIHR Health Services Delivery Research, aims to address this gap.
Chief Investigator: Dr Helen Killaspy
Principal Investigator: Professor Joanna Moncrieff
Summary: Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), characterised by a tendency to worry, is the most common anxiety disorder in older people. Medication and talking therapy are usually offered as forms of treatment, but many do not find them helpful. Guidance on how to help older people manage GAD when it does not respond to such treatments is lacking. In a previous study (FACTOID), we developed and tailored a talking therapy intervention to the psychological, physical and cognitive needs of older people with treatment-resistant GAD (TR GAD). This was based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT); a form of talking therapy that helps people learn how best to live with distressing thoughts, feelings and sensations, while still doing things that really matter to them. This showed that tailored ACT was acceptable to older people with TR-GAD and it may help improve anxiety, depression and coping. The aim of CONTACT-GAD is to find out whether tailored ACT is helpful for older people with TR-GAD and whether it represents value for money in a larger clinical trial.
Chief Investigator: Dr Rebecca Gould
Principal Investigator: Dr Georgina Charlesworth
Summary: When someone who has harmed themselves is seen in the Emergency Department (ED), a mental health practitioner (MHP) conduct a risk assessment. This includes assessing the patient’s psychological state, social situation and needs for support. However, referring patients to specialized mental health services is often not a realistic option because of limited capacity in services, lengthy waitlists and many patients do not attend or withdraw from treatment. Risk of suicide is greatest in the initial week after discharge from hospital, so rapid follow up care in the days following discharge has the potential to provide a lifesaving intervention for people. This study is testing an intervention of a therapeutic assessment, a check-in phone call within 72-hours and three follow-up sessions using a solution focused approach to see if the intervention is effective compared with usual practice in reducing reattendance to hospital for self-harm.
Chief Investigator: Professor Rose McCabe
Principal Investigator: Dr Luca Polledri
Summary: The study aims to investigate the brain activation patterns of people suffering from personality disorders (both in adults and adolescents) or similar traits and compare them with healthy control participants. Only little is known about the neurobiology of Borderline and Antisocial Personality Disorders. The study design will address some of these which will hopefully allow us to gain a better understanding of the disorders and to develop more informed and effective treatments from which clients will benefit.
Chief Investigator: Professor Peter Fonagy
Principal Investigator: Dr Janet Feigenbaum
Summary: The impact of CBT on threat-potentiated neural circuitry Pathological feelings of anxiety constitutes the most common psychiatric diagnosis in the developed world, yet current psychological treatments are largely clinically ineffective. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) is a structured form of psychological therapy, and can be successful for some individuals, but its neurobiological mechanism of action remains unknown. This study will aim to test whether specific neural circuitry changes, proposed on the basis of our neurocognitive model of anxiety, are a mechanism of action for CBT interventions. This study also aims to elucidate the neurobiological mechanisms of CBT’s therapeutic effect and potentially allow for more targeted/specific approaches to anxiety disorders. The ultimate aim is to improve the efficacy of CBT, and more generally, psychological interventions for anxiety disorders.
Chief Investigator: Dr Oliver J Robinson
Principal Investigator: Aitziber Elizalde
Summary: The Cognitive and Neural Networks in Psychiatry (CNNP) Study investigates the neural and cognitive mechanisms that are associated with psychiatric disorders. Despite the frequent occurrence and the high costs associated with psychiatric disorders, little is known about the mechanisms causing these illnesses and what prevents people from becoming mentally ill. The CNNP study investigates the neurocognitive aspects of psychiatric disorders, the validity of a dimensional approach and trans-diagnostical traits. The study will investigate key psychiatric dimensions, such as impulsivity, compulsivity, emotional instability and social difficultiesThe CNNP is part of the Neuroscience in Psychiatry Network (NSPN), funded by a Strategic Wellcome Trust Award.
Chief Investigator: Professor Ray Dolan
Principal Investigator: Aitziber Elizalde
Summary: Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI) will be the world’s first comprehensive resource for eating disorders and will provide: (1) biological samples for studying the genetics (2) psychological and medical data, including neuropsychological, psychiatric conditions and medical comorbidities; and (3) data on family psychiatric and medical history. It will represent a resource of clinical measures linked to biological samples as part of the NIHR BioResource
and the NIHR BioResource Centre Maudsley. The resource will enable studies on EDs by providing samples and biological data to the scientific community at minimal costs.
Chief Investigator: Professor Gerome Breen
Principal Investigator: Dr Anna Oldershaw
IRAS# 322531
Summary: The PIPA trial is a two-arm, randomised controlled trial to modify the Partners in Parenting website and resources to a UK context and assess whether the personalised programme reduces the risk of affective disorders in young people at high risk. Families will be randomised 1:1 between the personalised programme and standard educational package.
Chief Investigator: Professor Pasco Fearon
Principal Investigator: Dr Virginia Lumsden
IRAS# 324157
Summary: Family carers are at higher risk of developing anxiety and depression. Offering treatments online improves availability for people who have mobility problems, live remotely or cannot leave home. This makes it more accessible to everyone and easier to provide, so could be rolled out nationally, reducing inequalities in access to care. This large trial aims to find out if internet-delivered self-help Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for family carers of people with dementia (online ACT) is helpful in reducing anxiety and affordable. It also aims to find out how online ACT can be successfully delivered to diverse carer populations and in different healthcare settings.
Chief Investigator: Dr Naoko Kishita
Principal Investigator: Jane Burges
IRAS# 327086
Summary: Of the 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, many experience depression, anxiety or both. This can worsen cognition (e.g. memory and language) and behavioural problems, lead to relationship difficulties, and increase care home admissions. With medications for mood in dementia often ineffective, recent trends have moved towards non-drug interventions. However, the lack of interventions available with proven effects results in significant unmet needs. Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a talking therapy, which addresses feelings of shame and stigma. This study aims to understand whether CFT is acceptable as an intervention for people with dementia and depression/ anxiety and whether conducting a future full-scale trial is likely to be possible.
Chief Investigator: Aimee Spector
Principal Investigator: Lindsay Royan
IRAS# 271363
Summary: This study is funded by the Alzheimer’s Society and led by University College London in collaboration with University of Bradford (UoB). This application is for the full trial of part three of a large programme of work. In part one, we carried out interviews and observations with family carers, people with dementia and professionals on what helps and hinders independence at home. We used our findings to co-produce a psychological intervention to improve the support received by people with dementia and their family/friend at home. We piloted the intervention to make sure it was acceptable to the participants receiving it and the researchers delivering it. We will now test whether the intervention works.
Chief Investigator: Professor Claudia Cooper
Principal Investigator: Ritchard Ledgerd
IRAS# 237795
Summary : Digital Interventions in Neuro-Rehabilitation: Two digital neuro interventions (DNIs) for word retrieval. The development and testing of two web-based therapy applications for people with naming difficulties caused by Stroke (iTALKbetter) or Mild-Moderate Dementia (Gotcha!).
Chief Investigator: Dr Alexander Leff
Principal Investigator: Claire Doyle
IRAS# 313873
Summary: Impaired social functioning is a core feature of dementia and declines progressively through the disease course, but we do not currently understand the specific causes of this decline and have no effective treatments for social functioning. Social cognitive impairment, particularly impaired theory of mind (meaning inability to understand that other people have other thoughts and conceptualise what those thoughts might be), is a likely major cause of this decline and, if this is established, it could be a target for future interventions which aim to maintain social cognition. This study aims to test whether theory of mind deficits, or those in other social cognitive domains, are associated with current and subsequent level of social behaviour and functioning in Alzheimer’s disease. It also aims to establish the reliability and validity of novel approaches to the measurement of social behaviour and function in Alzheimer’s disease.
Chief Investigator: Dr Andrew Sommerlad
Principal Investigator: Jane Burgess
IRAS# 321707
Summary : The study aims to find out how those responsible for planning and managing adult community health services go about trying to match the supply of services to need or demand. Adult community health services include community nursing services and other such services provided in the community or in patients' own homes. The study will involve interviewing the managers responsible for commissioning community services to find out how they decide how much money to allocate and what types of services they want. We will also interview managers in the organisations which provide the services to find out how they decide what services to provide and how they check whether services are meeting the needs of their populations. This will help us to understand how such services can be better planned and managed in the future.
Chief Investigator: Dr Rachel Meacock
Principal Investigator: None
IRAS# 265175
Summary : This study aims produce high-quality evidence about which types of Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams are most effective in improving mother and infant outcomes, and in what circumstances. It will invite 100 pregnant and postnatal women who are receiving services from a perinatal community mental health team, 100 partners/co-parents, and 50 health providers to take part in the study. Women will be invited from different areas in England, from up to 10 different services with different types of provision. Participants will be asked to complete interviews about their experiences of care. Data will also be gathered from services about how many people are referred to the service, the number of sessions attended, and what types of interventions individuals receive. This will inform which types of PMH teams help women and their families get access to evidence-based treatments during pregnancy or postnatally.
Chief Investigator: Abigail Easter
Principal Investigator: Gemma Lutwyche
IRAS# 146051
Summary : In East London [and second site Bradford], South Asian people have some of the highest rates of heart disease, diabetes, and poor health in the UK. Living with a long-term illness has a major impact on a person’s quality of life and on their family. Genes & Health is a medical research study set up to help fight against these and other major diseases. Some early aims of the study are to study normal variation in genes in adult Bangladeshi and Pakistani people, to study genes in people with very high and very low cholesterol levels, to better understand why heart disease and stroke occurs, to study variation in genes in healthy adults whose parents are related, and to study genes of people with diabetes.
Chief Investigator: Professor David Van Heel
Principal Investigator: Dr Sandeep Toot
IRAS# 308114
Summary: More than a million people in the UK are affected by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is the best treatment for the symptoms and impact of COPD, it improves quality of life and exercise capacity. PR classes include exercise and information on how to manage symptoms. The impact of PR is restricted by poor rates of uptake and completion. Only 4 out of 10 people with COPD, referred for PR, complete the classes. Volunteers who have completed PR will be trained to support COPD patients who have been referred for PR. Previous research has shown that PR-buddies’can be successfully recruited and trained to support COPD patients referred for PR. The main outcome of the IMPROVE Trial is whether PR-buddies increase the rates of uptake and completion of PR compared with PR centres who do not have a PR-buddy service.
Chief Investigator: Dr Patrick White
Principal Investigator: Michelle Higgins
IRAS# 120344
Summary : Down Syndrome (DS) occurs due to the presence of three copies of chromosome 21, and is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability. Individuals with DS show a large variability in their cognitive abilities, and problems may be seen in functions related to frontal, temporal, hippocampal and cerebellar regions (such as executive functioning, language, memory, and motor coordination). All individuals with DS have Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology in their brains after the age of 30, yielding a much greater risk for developing the clinical signs of AD compared to the general population. Not all individuals with DS however develop the clinical symptoms of AD. This may be due to differences in their genetic, biological, cognitive or socio-economic profiles, although the contributions of these causes that account for this variation are currently unknown. The proposed study will investigate these variations and their developmental origins.
Chief Investigator: Professor Andre Strydom
Principal Investigator: Dr Bini Thomas
IRAS# 329085
Summary: This NIHR funded study wants to see if the NHS can better support people who break their hip to get back to going outdoors by providing extra care to help them get back to doing things they like to do outdoors on foot or with transport. They will be supported by a therapist who will help them reduce fear about falling again.If this small study shows this extra care can be given in the NHS and is helpful a larger study will be carried out. The larger study will see if this extra care works to help older people get back to what they like to do outdoors and feel happier.
Chief Investigator: Emma Godfrey
Principal Investigator: Zita Lodge
IRAS# 274384
Summary : Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are poorly healing wounds below the ankle affecting 25% of people with diabetes. Less than half of people will be ulcer-free after 6 months of treatment, and the same number will experience another ulcer within a year. This study is an intervention to help people with diabetes who have had a foot ulcer previously. It includes 8 one hour session with a healthcare professional, such as a diabetes nurse, and support through a website.
Chief Investigator: Professor Frances Game
Principal Investigator: Nadine Price
IRAS# 88372
Summary : Quality of Life (QoL) for people with disabling neurological conditions is affected by a range of factors, which have received considerable previous research attention. However clinicians’ knowledge could be enhanced. This study will consult with a range of people with the conditions stroke, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica, spinal conditions and motor neurone disease to learn about QoL and develop and test a questionnaire measure.
Chief Investigator: Professor Carolyn Young
Principal Investigator: Liz Edmunds
TBC
IRAS# 0
NIHR# 44293
Summary : The PIPA trial is a two-arm, randomised controlled trial to modify the Partners in Parenting website and resources to a UK context and assess whether the personalised programme reduces the risk of affective disorders in young people at high risk. Families will be randomised 1:1 between the personalised programme and standard educational package.
Chief Investigator: Dr Andrew Thompson
IRAS# 312683
Summary : People are referred to memory clinics when there is a suspicion that they might have dementia. However, there are other causes of memory difficulty, and often it is impossible to know whether someone has dementia when they are first assessed. Doctors refer to this uncertain situation as “mild cognitive disorder” (MCD). Currently, the only way to establish the diagnosis is to follow people over time to see if things get worse. Timely diagnosis is important. Brain scans are a routine part of memory clinic assessment. Dementia causes shrinking of the brain, but when humans interpret scans, this only provides a clear diagnosis when dementia is quite advanced. ABATED developed a technology for computerised interpretation of brain scans. This can predict whether somebody with MCD will develop dementia with 92% accuracy. There is regional variation in dementia diagnosis. East London is very diverse and deprived, with low rates of accurate dementia diagnosis. This study will the technology to interpret the brain scans of people with MCD in East London memory clinics to predict who will develop dementia and who will not.
Chief Investigator: Dr Charles Marshall
Principal Investigator: Dr Georgina Turnbull
IRAS# 272043
Summary :People receiving mental health hospital treatment for psychosis prioritise having access to talking therapies as part of their treatment plan. However, very little research has been done to develop a talking therapy which can be offered in mental health hospital. Mental health hospitals care for people experiencing high levels of distress and risk of harm to themselves and others for very short periods of time. Currently, there is no talking therapy available which has been specifically developed to help this group of people in mental health hospital. The aim of this study is to try out an adapted talking therapy intervention to see if it may be helpful to inpatients. The study will also be trialling out a newly developed questionnaire which hopes to assess important therapy outcomes for people in mental health hospital, as there are currently no appropriate questionnaires.
Chief Investigator: Dr Lisa Wood
Principal Investigator: Dr Lisa Wood
IRAS# 274277
Summary :This study will test a prevention programme to lower older people’s chances of getting dementia. The half of older people (aged 60+) who have problems with “cognition” (memory, orientation and other thinking) have more chance of getting dementia, so we have tried to design an approach that works for them. The programme aims to help older people make changes that can prevent dementia. The study will find out whether people receiving our programme have less cognitive problems over two years than people who only receive an information leaflet; if so, how our programme worked, and if it is good value for money.
Chief Investigator: Professor Claudia Cooper
Principal Investigator: Dr Georgina Charlesworth
IRAS# 188916
Summary: The DECRYPT study aims to improve treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for children and teenagers who have been through several very scary or upsetting experiences. Post-traumatic stress often involves thoughts or memories of the experiences, nightmares, and other forms of anxiety and distress. Children and young people who have PTSD might receive help from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and other NHS services. This study will compare the standard care and support that NHS services offer with a type of talking therapy called “cognitive therapy”.
Chief Investigator: Dr Richard Meiser-Stedman
Principal Investigator: Dr Benjamin Goodall
IRAS# 272935
Summary : Many people living with dementia have disturbed sleep, including reduced night-time sleep, night-time wandering and daytime sleepiness. They often wake family members, who may become exhausted, stressed and unhappy. Night-time paid care may be unaffordable and care at home may break down. There are currently no known effective, safe treatments for sleep problems in people with dementia, possibly because there may be many causes even in the same person. A team of experts - in sleep, dementia interventions, and people whose lives have been affected by dementia - developed DREAMS START (Dementia RElAted Manual for Sleep; STrAtegies for RelaTives) using the best evidence and what people felt was important to them. It uses several approaches; such as increasing light, activity, comfort, routine and relaxation. It is flexible, based on what someone needs and what works for them. The study trains and supervises health workers with a psychology degree to deliver DREAMS START.
Chief Investigator: Ms S Rand
Principal Investigator: Dr Georgina Charlesworth
IRAS# 300671
Summary : The number of people being involuntarily admitted to mental health hospitals under the Mental Health Act (being “sectioned”) has been increasing in the UK. One way to try and reduce this number is to offer support to people who get sectioned to try and reduce the likelihood of it happening again in the future. There is limited research carried out to understand what types of support might help stop or reduce the likelihood of people being sectioned. The aim of this study is to develop and test a new type of support that aims to reduce the likelihood of “sectioning” happening again once someone leaves hospital. The new type of support will involve developing a crisis plan and receiving regular contact from a psychologist over the next year to help people develop skills to manage their own mental health and respond if another crisis may be developing. The study is particularly keen to include and consider how to help people from ethnic minority backgrounds as they are more likely to be “sectioned” compared to White British people.
Chief Investigator: Professor Sonia Johnson
Principal Investigator: Dr Lisa Wood
IRAS# 303121
Summary: Around 4% of UK children have high levels of hyperactivity/impulsivity and inattention - 90% of whom also display difficult-to-manage behaviour known as conduct problems. This can stress parents, lower their self-esteem, and negatively impact family life.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that parents of children with these kinds of problems get support as soon as possible after they seek professional help. However, clinical services are overstretched, and traditional in-person parent training is expensive, families often wait very long to receive this vital input. To address this, we have created a digital parent training course - Structured E-Parenting Support (STEPS). It is delivered as a mobile app and provides low-cost support that can be easily accessed at parents’ convenience. This study aims to test if STEPS helps parents reduce children’s conduct problems during the difficult waiting period for clinical assessment.
Cheif Investigator: Professor Edmund Sonuga-Barke
Principal Investigator: Dr Annette Barrett
IRAS# 297739
Summary : Common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety disorders particularly relevant to the population in the present time as population. Psychological treatments, such as cognitive-behavioural therapy have been reported to be effective in the treatment of CMHP. The identification of predictors of psychological treatment outcomes could have beneficial clinical applications, such as effectively adjusting treatment to individual patients, and would be an important step to ensure protection and improvement of mental health and associated quality of life in both younger and older adults. This study will investigate the predictors of outcome of psychological treatments for adults using IAPT services.
Chief Investigator: Miss Alexandra Schmidt
Principal Investigator: Dr Mark Horowitz
IRAS# 318551
Summary : Anorexia Nervosa (AN) can have a serious and severe impact on individuals and those around them. Recommended psychological interventions are typically not found to be helpful by people with AN who often have difficulties for a long time and have regular periods of relapse. Due to this, there have been calls for new therapeutic approaches. Research suggests that voice hearing experiences are common in those with AN and that over time, a relationship is formed with what is often called the “Anorexic Voice” (AV) or the “Eating Disorder Voice” (EDV). Individuals’ beliefs about and ways of relating with their AV may be a factor in the development and maintenance of AN. This study aims to explore the potential for a targeted psychological therapy called Relating Therapy to reduce the distressed associated with voice hearing experiences within the context of Anorexia Nervosa (AN). Relating Therapy targets the negative relating that can maintain voice-related distress and teaches assertiveness as an alternative response.
Chief Investigator: Dr Mark Hayward
Principal Investigator: Dr Lucy Serpell
IRAS# 278399
Summary: Psychosis, which directly affects 2-3% of the population, is a severely debilitating psychiatric disorder characterised by a range of symptoms including false beliefs, false perceptions and disorganised thinking. Although antipsychotic medication can lead to rapid improvement in the acute phase of the disorder, most patients subsequently relapse. In order to address this challenge, we have developed a smartphone app which allows the close monitoring of people across multiple contexts, time-points and locations in real time (Urban Mind; www.urbanmind.info). This study will use an adapted version of the Urban Mind app to measure daily social stress – which is thought to be a strong predictor of the risk of relapse – in patients with a first episode of psychosis (FEP).
Chief Investigator: Professor Andrea Mechelli
Principal Investigator: Dr Miriam Fornells-Ambrojo
IRAS# 319599
Summary: Many people who experience psychosis spend too much time sitting down and not enough time exercising. To help design effective interventions to help with this we need to understand what helps and hinders physical activity. A previous study indicates that the thoughts people have impact upon the physical activity they do. It is therefore important that we develop ways of assessing problematic thoughts, which can later be targeted in treatment. This study will develop questionnaires which will examine reasons to be active, reasons to be less active, reasons to stand and reasons to sit. The questionnaires will be tested to check that they measure what is intended and they are reliable, relevant and a suitable length.
Chief Investigator: Dr Rowan Diamond
Principal Investigator: Dr Lisa Wood
IRAS# 325675
IRAS# 332688
IRAS# 323910
IRAS# 217408
IRAS# 323185
IRAS# 289184
IRAS# 327179
IRAS# 325024
IRAS# 266408
IRAS# 318825
IRAS# 320851
IRAS# 325687
IRAS# 319041
IRAS# 320707