Mind & Body shares learnings with Australia

Gracie Tredget, Programme Manager, Mind & Body Programme, King’s Health Partners; Dr Julie Williams, Research and Evaluation Lead, Mind and Body Programme, King’s Health Partners; and Raymond McGrath, former Lead Nurse, Mind & Body Programme, King’s Health Partners. 

In March 2023, the Mind & Body Programme celebrated the end of the Integrating our Mental & Physical Healthcare Systems (IMPHS) project, previously funded by the Maudsley Charity. The focus of this project was to test and evaluate various physical health interventions that could improve the lives of people living with serious mental illness (SMI) accessing services at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.  

Upon completion of the project, the team made a commitment in 2023 to continue championing ways to share learning from IMPHS by disseminating project research and impact to clinical and academic communities across local, regional, and international healthcare systems. The hope in doing so is to build a global community of practice, committed to improving the lives of people with SMI and reducing the mortality gap for this vulnerable population.   

Following successful in-person talks in London, Switzerland, and Ireland throughout 2023, the team applied to attend the Evidence & Implementation Summit 2023 in Melbourne, Australia to share their work further with international partners as part of the Centre for Evidence & Implementation. Joined by Dr Julie Williams from the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London, the team were successful in their applications and were invited to participate in the three-day conference, which included workshops, keynote speeches, presentations, and opportunities to network within the community as well. The conference was delivered in-person and online with over 700 people in attendance from more than 30 different countries across the three days.   

The team delivered three talks across the three days:   

• Raymond McGrath delivered a lightning talk, to share his work on implementing and evaluating two interventions for use in the South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust: ‘Consultant Connect’ and a Physical Health Clinic. Raymond shared the impact of both interventions and their use in supporting physical health screening, assessment, and interventions for people with SMI to reduce unnecessary onward referrals/transfers.   
• On the third day of the conference, Gracie Tredget presented on ways to build capacity in mental health services and systems to improve physical healthcare in routine practice for SMI patients. Gracie shared details about the impact of work being delivered in South East London (SEL) and plans to build a Community of Practice for Physical Health and SMI with support from South east London partners.  
• Dr Julie Williams presented on how the IMPHs team worked collaboratively with key partners throughout the project using a recently developed model for building trusting relationships to show how this way of working improves implementation projects and how this enabled IMPHS to work successfully with key partners.   

After attending the conference, the team flew to Sydney to meet with colleagues at:  

• The University of New South Wales to learn about work achieved at Mindgardens - a research centre that brings together clinicians, researchers, patients, and their families to address the most urgent challenges in mental health, drug and alcohol and neurological disorders. We met with Professor Phillip Ward and colleagues, to share about the legacy of the IMPHS project and explore opportunities to work collaboratively on future projects on PH & SMI.   
• Sydney Health Partners to present to Chief Operating Office, Lena Caruso, and colleagues from across the partnership on clinical academic collaboratives being developed through the Mind & Body Programme in SEL and hear about the work being done in Sydney. A huge thank you to Professor Andrew Baillie, Professor Tim Lambert, Andria Ratchford, and colleagues for the opportunity to connect and to expand our network to include valuable international partners.  
• Utrecht University to meet with Myrtle van Schothorst, Jeroen Deenik, and Natasha Den Bleijker to learn about their work on physical health interventions in inpatient units and the links with our work.   

The team are thrilled to have been able to visit Australia on behalf of the KHP Mind & Body Programme. We’ve learned so much about work happening internationally on PH & SMI, and the role of Implementation Science in improving ways we approach working with partners and utilising research in healthcare services. The team are working now to continue to stay connected with new partners we met during the visit and are looking to work towards mobilising a Global Community of Practice to continue opportunities for knowledge exchange within the field in 2024.   

The team are preparing a full report on all presented work, learning and opportunities from the conferences attended in 2023. For more information about this, please contact Gracie Tredget on gracie.tredget@slam.nhs.uk.   

The Mind & Body Programme at King’s Health Partners continues to champion research that seeks to improve our understanding of the physical health inequalities that impede the quality and longevity of life for people living with a serious mental illness. For more information about the work we do, please do get in touch with the team via:   

Email: mindandbody@slam.nhs.uk   

Twitter: @mindandbody_KHP   

Website: https://www.kingshealthpartners.org/our-work/mind-and-body   

With additional thanks to:   

South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London, Centre for Evidence & Implementation, University of New South Wales, Sydney Health Partners and our former funders, the Maudsley Charity.