Second city’s strategic health alliance welcomes mental health trust as new member

Birmingham Health Partners has underlined its commitment to delivering research that enhances health and wellbeing by welcoming Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (BSMHFT) as its fifth NHS member.

BSMHFT was founded in 2003 and provides a wide range of inpatient, community and specialist mental health services – including early intervention and rehabilitation – and is one of the largest mental health trusts in the country with a workforce of around 4,000 across 50 sites. With a national and international reputation for research, BSMHFT maintains strong academic links with a number of prestigious institutions including BHP members the University of Birmingham and Aston University, and its portfolio includes studies focused on dementia, eating disorders, addictions, mood disorders and perinatal mental health.

Roisin Fallon Williams, Chief Executive of BSMHFT, commented: “My colleagues and I welcome the opportunities that membership of Birmingham Health Partners will provide to both our service users and our Trust, through the benefits of continued research and innovation in provision of mental health care in our region. We believe passionately that research is complementary to service delivery, rather than surplus to it, and BHP’s ethos of embedding research into all stages of clinical care is a perfect fit with our own culture.”

Professor David Adams, Director of BHP, commented: “BHP’s mission is to work collaboratively to ensure our community are ‘born well, live well, and die well’. The importance of mental health and wellbeing to this vision cannot be overstated, and neither can the intrinsic link between physical and mental health be overlooked. BSMHFT is already a long-term partner in many of the mental health studies and trials run across BHP, and so their formal inclusion in our partnership is a natural extension of our collaborations to date.”

BHP’s membership now comprises: the University of Birmingham; Aston University; Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust; Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust; the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust; University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust; and the West Midlands Academic Health Science Network.