News

Search the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust website

Keep up to date with:

local research news from our Trust including events, news and staff achievements
national news from across the whole research network including information about new studies just opened and study outcomes
regional and national research publications

Local Research News

Our Research Newsletters

December 2025: R&D December 2025 newsletter FINAL.pdf [pdf] 2MB

September 2025: R&D Sep 2025 newsletter FINAL.pdf [pdf] 2MB

June 2025: R&D June 2025 newsletter FINAL.pdf [pdf] 2MB

April 2025: R&D April 2025 newsletter FINAL.pdf [pdf] 1MB

Research & Development Conference

2026 Conference: Save the date!

We're excited to share our sixth annual National Research and Development Conference dates: Tuesday 13 and Wednesday 14 October 2026. We're in the very early planning stages so will update these intranet pages in due course.

This is a virtual conference that will likely have a morning and afternoon virtual session on each day.

2025 Conference: Recordings now available

Our fifth annual virtual Research and Development Conference ran on Tuesday 14 October and Wednesday 15 October with 2 sessions each day.

As in previous years the aim of our conference was to showcase some of the fantastic work that's happening in the research world. Tickets were free and everyone was welcome to join us. To find the presentation recordings and slides available to play back and view please visit our conference intranet pages. Recordings from previous conferences are also available here.

#Rainbow4Research 2025 Competition

After a successful 2024 competition our 2025 art AND poetry competition ran from 19.5.25 until midnight on 1.9.25.

Once again we invited people across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to think creatively about research by designing a piece of art or writing a poem (max 10 lines) which represents 'hope for research.' People were in with the chance to have their art/poem displayed publicly and to win some shopping vouchers.

We were thrilled to receive so many fantastic entries but whittled it down to three winning posters and two winning poems. Well done to our winners: two colleagues from our Trust, Kim and Dan; two children; and residents from a care home. It was great to see the reach this competition had - thank you to everyone who entered.

Please see the winning entries here in PDF form, Rainbow for research A4 winner posters2025_PRINT.pdf [pdf] 10MB.

If you would like to display a couple of these posters in your department please get in touch : WHCNHS.ResearchDevelopment@nhs.net and we can post some out to you.

Rainbow for Research is a campaign run on behalf of Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust. By submitting your artwork you give consent for the artwork to be shared and displayed. Original copies of artwork/poems will not be returned to owner.

Published work by staff

It's great to celebrate staff/teams who have had their work published or promoted at conferences. We're delighted to share this below. If you have recently had work published and would like us to promote this please get in touch.

July 2025: congratulations to Ben Sturrock, Advanced Physiotherapy Practitioner, who's had his work: An exploration of stakeholder perceptions of physiotherapists undertaking community advanced clinical practice roles | International Journal for Advancing Practice published in the International Journal for advancing Practise.
June 2025: Huge congratulations to teams in EIDS (Early Intervention Dementia Service) for their work which was promoted at conferences recently. Find out more below:

Psychological processes to treating visual hallucinations in Lewy Body dementias: an overview and case study: DLB poster.pdf [pdf] 2MB

Staff and family perspectives on a Care Home Dementia Assessment Service which was presented at the Faculty of Psychology of Older People conference at the beginning of July: Diadem FPOP (841 x 1189 mm) (841 x 1189 mm).pdf [pdf] 395KB

March 2025: Well done Georgina Beldon, Principal Clinical Psychologist - Mental Health Needs, who had her service evaluation: 'Adapting Structured Clinical Management for older adults services: An evaluation of pilot SCM group programme' published in the Clinical Psychology Forum. Beldon et al 2025 full SCM eval article.pdf [pdf] 132KB

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Research Consortium Steering Group: Research and Innovation Strategy launch, 2024-2029

UPDATE: March 2025: We are part of the above consortium and have been working with partners from across the ICB supporting the development of this strategy: Research Innovation Strategy V1.6 04.02.25.pdf [pdf] 993KB

We, along with the ICS, are excited to see the development of research across Herefordshire and Worcestershire over the next 5 years. Please see their statement below:

“We are delighted to share with you the finalised version of the Integrated Care System Research and Innovation Strategy – a five-year programme that spans 2024-2029. The attached slide deck goes into plenty of detail, but at its heart it is a strategy that is broad in its scope but detailed in delivery. There is a focus on a systemwide collaborative approach that will aid improvements in patient care and ensure that needs of our communities are being met. It’s success as a strategy will be measured against the quality, impact and sustainability of provision.

The aim is to improve infrastructures within the system to ensure that we can benefit from the information we glean from research projects and find new and creative ways to bring that learning to life for the communities we serve. In real terms, that means finding and allocating investment to set the foundations, proactively supporting new areas of growth for research and innovation, growing a local talent pool for the purposes of research and innovation, and ensuring that an inclusive ethos underpins everything we do.”

National Research news

Below is a selection of recent national research news stories. Keep up to date by visiting: News | NIHR:

Professional News, Training and Qualification updates

Please see below for a selection of research focussed newsletters and bulletins. These come out monthly or quarterly. The links below will take you to the most recent release. From here you can access older editions.

How can nurses get involved in local research initiatives? (Feb/March 2024)

Case study 1: Hear from 2 nurses — Donna Clements and Jo Moore from Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust - as they share their experience in delivering a NIHR Portfolio study in a busy community leg ulcer clinic. It has been published on the Queens Nursing Institute website and is available to view via this link: How Can Nurses Get Involved in Local Research Initiatives? – The Queen's Nursing Institute (qni.org.uk)

Case study 2: Becoming a research-active Community Learning Disabilities Nurse: Hear from Anca Manea — Community Learning Disabilities Nurse at Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust — who was awarded a NICHE Fellowship to develop her work in improving antenatal pathways for women and birthing people with learning disabilities. Read more here.

News Archive

Archive of local publications:

HWHCT Research and Development Newsletters

June 2022: June 2022 .pdf [pdf] 725KB

April 2022: April 2022 update.pdf [pdf] 738KB

February 2022: February 2022 update.pdf [pdf] 324KB

Christmas 2021: Research newsletter Christmas 2021.pdf [pdf] 4MB

Autumn 2021: Research quarterly newsletter Autumn 2021.pdf [pdf]

Summer 2021: Research quarterly newsletter summer 2021.pdf [pdf] 741KB

Clinical Research Network West Midlands (CRN WM) Bulletin (2023 editions)

CRN WM (Clinical Research Network West Midlands) Wellbeing Bulletin

Grit and Determination - May 2023 Mental Health Awareness Week - Anxiety Wellbeing Bulletin - May 2023 Doing our bit - April 2023 Wellbeing Bulletin - April 2023 Wellbeing Bulletin - March 2023 Staying motivated in the winter months - February 2023 Wellbeing Bulletin - January 2023

Archive of national publications

Clinical Research Practitioner (CRP) Directory Bulletin ( Homepage - Clinical Research Practitioners Directory - NIHR (ahcs.ac.uk))

March 2023 Jan/Feb 2023 October 2022 August 2022

UK Community Nursing Research Forum (hosted by the Queen's Nursing Institute)

May newsletter April newsletter March Newsletter February Newsletter January Newsletter - QNI Community Nursing Research Forum (mailchi.mp)

Study updates

Outcomes from previous Clinical and Health Research Studies

MELD: Co-production within community-based services for children with intellectual disabilities and behaviours that challenge in England - January 2026

Developing effective community-based services for children with intellectual disabilities and behaviours that challenge in England is a national priority. Service design and delivery guidelines state services should be co-produced with the children and families/carers accessing them. There is no identified data about how well services are delivering this recommendation. This study aimed to describe self-reported co-production activities within such services, and to consider how well these align with co-production definitions. Find out more here: tldr-07-2025-0020en.pdf [pdf] 382KB

MindArise - November 2025

Looked at how staff in England engage with, identify with, and experience the benefits of mindfulness-based practices. Find out more here: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0331196

Balancing preferences and constraints around nurses shift scheduling across the organisation, a qualitative study - January 2025

Three themes were identified that influenced nurses’ decisions for shift scheduling: 1/ Balancing Choice with Consistency, Predictability and Flexibility; 2/Adequate Rest and Recovery Between Shifts; and 3/Enjoyment and Engagement at Work. There was a meta-theme of conflict within and between staff groups across these three themes. Find out more here: Balancing preferences and constraints around nurses shift scheduling across the organisations, a qualitative study.docx [docx] 280KB

Building a supportive culture to retain doctors-in-training - December 2024

Our Trust supported this study during the Autumn of 2024 — big thanks to everyone who supported it. Please find the results here: Care in Uncertainty Policy Brief Resident Doctors.pdf [pdf] 234KB

Can compassionate leadership of senior hospital leaders help retain trainee doctors? - July 2024

We ran this study earlier in the year — big thanks to everyone involved and who supported this study. This provided doctors, NHS Trusts and other stakeholders with evidence-based insights and recommendations to improve the working experiences and retention of doctors-in-training.

An article based on your previous responses has been published in the BMJ Leader.

Parent Carer Wellbeing Study - July 2024

This study was open in our Trust in 2023 and first findings of the study have been published. Read the summary here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/more-than-40-of-parents-with-disabled-children-have-thought-about-suicide-study or read the full article here: Full article: Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors in Parents Caring for Children with Disabilities and Long-Term Illnesses (tandfonline.com)

This is the first research study of its kind and the findings are deeply concerning. They also highlight an urgent need for action in policy and practice to support at-risk parent carers.

If you have been personally effected by this please don't hesitate to get in touch for further support: WHCNHS.ResearchDevelopment@nhs.net

MELODIC: Music therapy for people with dementia - April 2024

This study was open in our Trust in November 2023 - early January 2024 and aimed to co-design a new music therapy intervention for NHS dementia wards with stakeholders and experts-by-experience. 11 people were recruited from this Trust so a huge thank you to all involved on Meadow Ward staff at New Haven, Bromsgrove, and Cantaloupe ward staff in Hereford.

Catch-up on a systematic review here.

Hearing Nasty Voices - February 2024

We were pleased to be one of the first NHS Trust’s to open this study in February 2020 and, although paused during COVID, was open through until December 2021. 3 people were recruited contributing to the 308 participants recruited in total.

HUGE thanks to teams in this Trust involved in this study who have helped broaden understanding of the potential causes of distress in voice hearers focussing on one type of experience – hearing derogatory or threatening voices.

We shared the full report in 2023: https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/49/1/151/6659785

The participant feedback and final report has now been released. Please see below.

Participant feedback: Hearing nasty voices participant feedback.pdf [pdf] 83KB

Final report: Hearing Nasty Voices Follow-up archdischild-2023-326393.full.pdf [pdf] 461KB

YourTube: Home blended diets for children who are gastrostomy fed - February 2024

It was great to receive the results from the above study which Alix Ginever (Community Paediatric Dietitian) led on for this Trust.

HUGE thanks to Alix and everyone involved. Please find the summary of the findings and full articles:

Yourtube - 0102 Infographic print.pdf [pdf] 1MB

Baseline Develop Med Child Neuro - 2023 - Fraser - YourTube the role of different diets in gastrostomyfed children Baseline.pdf [pdf] 789KB

Follow-up archdischild-2023-326393.full.pdf [pdf] 700KB

‘Building a supportive culture to retain doctors-in-training’ - January 2024

Huge thanks to the staff who supported this study which was open in this Trust in July 2023.

"As part of the Trust's commitment to improve trainee doctors' working lives, The R&D team supported Dr Wen Wang's research project "Building a supportive culture to retain trainee doctors" (Leicester University Business School). This was funded by the British Academy.

More information can be found at https://careinuncertainty.le.ac.uk.

The first project's survey was completed by more than 300 trainee doctors from England and Wales. The research findings have been disseminated amongst the 25 participating NHS Trusts ( Doctors in training study summary_Initial findings (3).docx [docx] 63KB). Based on the findings, an event was curated and well-attended on 30^th November 2023 (Leading the Future Healthcare CPD Day – Report )

73 guests were hosted at the Brookfield House, among them 60 are trainee doctors from the NHS Trusts.
The programme was well received with 90% of the trainee doctors who attended wanting to recommend this event to a fellow doctor; and 79% wanting to attend a similar event again.

The recommendations (3Rs: Responsiveness, Relationship, and Recognition) from the findings are similar to the core values already adopted by the trust.

The Medical Directorate thanks the study team for sharing this information with them and acknowledges the importance of increased engagement between senior leaders and trainee doctors to form good working relationships to support trainee doctors, and to recognise their valuable contribution by informing trainee doctors about their achievements. There will be a follow-up survey in February and a CPD event in April 2024.

The Trust is a core member of the project and these opportunities are open to trainee doctors."

RADAR (Research into Antipsychotic Discontinuation and Reduction) - October 2023

We were thrilled to learn that a study that staff from Herefordshire were involved in, led by Dr Barny Major (PI – Principal Investigator), has been published in the Lancet.

The study looked at ‘benefits and harms of a gradual process of antipsychotic reduction compared with maintenance treatment.’

It found that:

A gradual reduction over several months in the dose of maintenance antipsychotics in people diagnosed with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders did not lead to benefits in social functioning and was more likely to lead to relapse than continuing on maintenance treatment.

Read the article here:

Psychological Impact of Covid-19 (phase 3)

We recruited just under 100 people to this online questionnaire study in 2021 including a number of staff so a quick update: the end of study report will soon be submitted but in the meantime please see below for the following papers on the study that have been published: World journal of psychiatry and Journal of Affective Disorders

SYMBAD (Study of Mirtazapine for Agitated Behaviours in Dementia) - October 2021

The main results have been published in the Lancet: https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0140673621012101 but please see below for the summary outcomes:

In summary we found that there was no benefit in taking mirtazapine compared with placebo, there was even the possibility of harm with a marginally higher rate of mortality in the mirtazapine group. The clear conclusion from the data is that they do not support the use of mirtazapine as a treatment for agitation in dementia. Positively there was clear recovery in those that participated in both the placebo and the mirtazapine group. This means that the best thing to do clinically may be to actively monitor agitation while carrying out treatment as usual, rather than jumping to use another medication in all but the most serious of cases.

This is a result that has important implications to clinical practice, and we hope that you will join with us in disseminating the findings as widely as possible. There has been a press release: Research news - Common antidepressant should no longer be used to treat people with dementia - University of Exeter by the University of Plymouth and the team would be happy to work with your local institutions and Trusts should you wish to provide further public information. Alzheimer’s Research UK has also published an article: Antidepressant drug doesn’t improve agitation in dementia trial - Alzheimer's Research UK (alzheimersresearchuk.org)

HUGE thanks to everyone who was involved in this study at HWHCT.

PrEP (HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis) Impact Trial

PrEP (HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis) is a medicine for HIV negative people and it can reduce the risk of catching HIV when taken as instructed. However this is currently not available through the NHS.

PrEP is made up of two drugs, Tenofovir and Emtricitabine. Both these drugs have been widely used for many years to treat HIV and the drug has been used by several thousands of HIV negative people worldwide to reduce the risk of HIV.

To plan a PrEP programme in England, NHS England and Local Authorities carried out research to find out:

How many people attending sexual health clinics need PrEP?
How many of these start PrEP?
How long do they need PrEP for?

In this Trust the study ran (2017-2020) across the 3 Sexual Health Services; Arrowside, John Anthony Centre and Hereford and 64 patients were recruited. All participants in this study had access to PrEP. Read the findings here: Landmark study confirms effectiveness of PrEP - GOV.UK

6-month neurological and psychiatric outcomes in 236,379 survivors of COVID-19: a retrospective cohort study using electronic health records