University to look at rural mental health care

The University of Worcester has been awarded more than £2m to carry out research into mental health provision in rural areas of Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

The funding will establish a new Rural Mental Health Research Unit and pay for a five-year programme and three new posts to look at inequalities across the two counties.

Mental illnesses in rural areas can go unnoticed because of stigma, social isolation, and barriers to accessing services, the university said.

Professor David Green, vice chancellor and chief executive of the university, said he was delighted to receive the money from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

"The research that this unit will conduct will help many thousands of people living in rural communities in the years ahead," he said.

"This is a really positive development for the community, the NHS and the university. We are very grateful to the NIHR for this major award."

Professor Eleanor Bradley, director of research in the university's College of Health and Science and principal investigator on the programme said the research will be shared with other regions.

"The reason we need to do this research is to learn more about the experiences of people living across our rural communities, through new research designed to reflect their daily lives and experiences of mental ill-health," she said.

"This will enable us to develop our services locally, whilst understanding more about rurality as a risk to people's mental health."

The new team will work with voluntary and community sectors and learn more about how patients have previously been underserved.

"It's expected that the research carried out here could have huge implications for the way mental health services are delivered in rural settings much more widely," she added.

The programme will be delivered with the University of Birmingham's Institute for Mental Health and regional health bodies, including the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board, the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, public health teams and primary care.

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