Our research

Our ICS sets out its vision in the Integrated Care Strategy. All partners are working together to ensure that ‘every person will enjoy their best possible health and wellbeing’. Our ICS has three guiding principles: prevention, equity and integration. Read our Integrated Care Strategy.

Health and Wellbeing Boards bring leaders from the local health and care system together, to work with other partners to improve the health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities of the local population. Each Health and Wellbeing Board has a Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy which identifies the strategic priorities for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

• Nottingham City Health & Wellbeing Board
• Nottingham City Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2025
• Nottinghamshire Health and Wellbeing Board
• Nottinghamshire Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2026

The JSNA is a local assessment of current and future health and social care needs of the people in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire which informs the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategies and helps guide actions including research to address these needs and reduce health inequalities.

• Joint Strategic Needs Assessment – Nottingham Insight
• Joint Strategic Needs Assessment – Nottinghamshire Insight

Find lots of information and data about what it’s like to live in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire including the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).  

• Home – Nottingham Insight
• Home – Nottinghamshire Insight

Improving the health of the whole population and reducing health inequalities 

• What is a population health approach?  
• What builds good health? An introduction to the building blocks of health
• How to talk about the building blocks of health | The Health Foundation
• Core20PLUS5 is a national approach to inform action to reduce healthcare inequalities at both national and system level.

Our research vision is that our ICS will have an integrated and supportive research environment, clearly aligned with system priorities, that ensures improved outcomes and reduced health inequalities for our local population, and efficiencies for our health and care system. We have four key research priorities: population, workforce, system and implementation. Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS Research Strategy 2024-29

A key aim of the ICS Research Strategy is ensuring our local population benefits from research by co-producing research that focuses on their health and care needs. Understanding the population and the significant health inequalities that exist will help researchers engage effectively with our communities to understand their needs and co-produce studies that are meaningful to them. We are also working together to prioritise and support research that focuses on preventing poor health and strengthening the building blocks of good health.

Our research infrastructure has benefitted from significant investment from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), charities, Research Councils, place-based funds and industry, as well as from the government, the NHS and universities. This represents a huge opportunity for all partners to use these joint major assets.

We can also draw on the expertise available from local and regional organisations and services. These offer support along the research pathway to ensure our research has the best chance of success in its design, delivery and in its translation to use in practice.

Find out more on pages 5 and 6 of our ICS Research Strategy with links to each organisation.  

Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS Research Strategy 2024-29

Here are some examples of research studies that have taken place in our ICS and their impact.

Falls in Care Homes (FinCH)

400,000 people live in care homes in the UK. Falls are common, harmful, costly and difficult to prevent. 40% of admissions to hospital from care homes are related to a fall. Professor Pip Logan at the University of Nottingham leads the Falls in Care Home research studies. The Action Falls Programme (previously called The Guide to Action for care homes GtACH) developed from this research. Action Falls consists of a multifactorial falls risk assessment, training and support for care home staff to identify why residents fall and then take actions to mitigate these risks.

In the Falls in Care Homes (FinCH) Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) the Action Falls (GtACH) programme was shown to reduce resident falls by 43% compared to usual care, and was cost effective at £108 per resident or for every quality-adjusted life year gained the cost was £4544.

Following the FinCH RCT the next step was to research how to deliver the Action Falls programme in ‘real life’ outside a research trial. The Falls in Care Homes Implementation Study (FinCH Imp) was undertaken to research the best techniques to enable adoption of the now renamed Action Falls Programme, across 60 care homes in four UK regions. This led to the development of the Action Falls Toolkit, Action Falls Train the Trainer elearning package and policy brief. 

The Action Falls Programme has impact and resident benefit. It reduces falls without reducing liberty, mobility or the normal activities of daily living. It improves the quality of living of residents, increases the confidence and empowerment of staff dealing with falls, reduces hospital admissions and is cost effective. It is now utilised in over 300 care homes nationally and is endorsed as best practice in NHS England’s Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH) Framework.

Find out more

• Falls in Care Homes (FinCH) – The University of Nottingham
• Action Falls Programme Home – University of Nottingham

Online Remote Behavioural Intervention for Tics (ORBIT- UK Project)

Tic disorders are common, affecting 1% of children and young people in the UK (110,000), and impact daily on educational functioning and mental health. Tics are involuntary movements or sounds which frequently co-occur with other psychiatric conditions. Clinical guidelines state behavioural therapy is effective and should be the first-line treatment for tics, however, in the UK, over 80% of young people (88,800) with a tic disorder receive no treatment at all due to a lack of trained therapists.

The online delivery of therapy can close this treatment gap, by increasing access without requiring more highly trained therapists. This was demonstrated in the ORBIT trial; a large randomised controlled trial delivered from 2017 – 2021 with findings recently published in The Lancet demonstrating that a 10-week online behavioural therapy programme for tics, with low-level therapist support, improved tic symptoms long-term and was cost-effective. The therapy was also highly acceptable to the trial participants with excellent uptake.

Since the close of this study the team led by Professor Chris Hollis at the University of Nottingham, have received additional funding via the NIHR i4i to turn ORBIT it into a patient-ready digital tool deliverable at scale within the NHS. 

Find out more

https://institutemh.org.uk/research/projects-and-studies/orbit-uk

Evaluation of the Nottinghamshire Healthy Families Programme Parent/Infant relationship initiative

The evaluation findings will help shape current and future service delivery.

Find out more

Evaluation of the Nottinghamshire Healthy Families Programme Parent/Infant relationship initiative – NIHR Public Health Interventions Research Studies Teams (PHIRST)

Evaluation of a public health pathway for alcohol and substance users in the criminal justice setting in Nottinghamshire

This evaluation generated policy and service recommendations for criminal justice substance and alcohol services through a qualitative evaluation of an innovative service re-design. Learning helped understanding about the processes involved in establishing this kind of service innovation.

Find out more

Evaluation of a public health pathway for alcohol and substance users in the criminal justice setting in Nottinghamshire. – NIHR Public Health Interventions Research Studies Teams (PHIRST)

East Midlands Evidence Repository (EMER)

Find out more about research that has happened in our ICS by using the East Midlands Evidence Repository the official institutional research repository for:

• Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
• Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
• Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
• Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Primary Care