Oxford Well being NHS Basis Belief, College of Oxford and Aston College have received £16.3m in funding from the Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Analysis (NIHR) to fund infrastructure to enhance the well being of individuals residing within the Thames Valley area and past, by means of prevention and improvements in well being and social care.
Oxford Well being NHS Basis Belief (OHFT) is the host for the present NIHR ARC OxTV and has been chosen to host the NIHR Thames Valley ARC from April 2026. It is going to be co-led by College of Oxford’s Professor Kam Bhui CBE, Professor of Psychiatry and Honorary Advisor Psychiatrist, and Aston College’s Professor Shivani Sharma, a professor at Aston Enterprise Faculty and Deputy Professional-Vice Chancellor (Analysis and Enterprise).
This ARC harnesses the strengths of each establishments and companions to create well being and social profit throughout Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Frimley in Surrey, and the West Midlands. NIHR ARC Thames Valley will collaborate with greater than 40 different companions, together with NHS trusts, native authorities, voluntary, group, and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations, companies and universities.
The ARC Thames Valley will carry collectively researchers, well being and social care employees, sufferers, public, and wider teams in to implement analysis findings. The staff will take heed to well being and social care suppliers and sufferers to study essentially the most urgent wants, and collaboratively set priorities and discover sensible options for fairer well being for all.
Professor Bhui stated:
I’m delighted to be main an bold and proficient staff to make sure we enhance well being and social care and cut back well being inequalities. We are going to do that by means of the implementation of analysis data to enhance commissioning, coverage, and follow throughout college, group, charity and well being and social care companions.”
Professor Sharma stated: “Analysis ought to mirror the fact on the bottom. Now we have the chance in our ARC to rethink inclusion, strengthening the hyperlink between analysis and its impression in on a regular basis lives.
“It’s a actual privilege to be working with such a various community to ship on the ambition of the ARC. I imagine that we’ll obtain lasting impression on well being, which is prime to serving to areas thrive.”
Dr Karl Marlowe, Chief Medical Officer at OHFT and chair of ARC Oxford & Thames Valley, stated:
“Our dedication at Oxford Well being NHS Basis Belief is to make sure that analysis interprets into real-world advantages for sufferers, and we’re happy to have the chance to proceed because the NHS host for the brand new ARC. By ARC Thames Valley, we are going to speed up the adoption of data switch for NHS revolutionary care fashions and deal with well being inequalities throughout our community of companions.”
The funding for ARC Thames Valley is a part of NIHR’s £157million funding to help 10 ARCS over 5 years. They intention to sort out a few of the UK’s most urgent well being and social care challenges by means of high-quality utilized analysis, whereas additionally accelerating the implementation of efficient interventions and fashions of care.
The NIHR ARCs are collaborative partnerships involving universities, NHS trusts, native authorities, well being innovation networks, built-in care boards, and the voluntary sector. By these partnerships, the ARCs will ship impactful analysis in utilized well being, public well being, and social care, notably in under-represented areas. The goals of the ARCs embrace supporting the rollout of efficient care fashions, collaborating with business corporations to judge new therapies and applied sciences, and addressing well being inequalities by embedding inclusive approaches
Professor Marian Knight, scientific director for NIHR Infrastructure, stated: “The NIHR is dedicated to offering the funding wanted, in any respect levels of the analysis journey, to make sure that one of the best therapies and care get to the sufferers who want them, as effectively and successfully as attainable. The ARCs play an important position on this course of, producing proof round new applied sciences and coverings, in addition to revolutionary methods of delivering care – all of which search to spice up the general public’s well being and wellbeing, and enhance NHS productiveness.”
Zubir Ahmed MP, UK well being innovation minister, stated: “This funding will speed up the breakthroughs that may underpin the success of our NHS 10 12 months Well being Plan, guaranteeing analysis goes from laboratory to front room and supporting the shift from affected person to prevention.
“As we work in direction of our mission of constructing an NHS match for the longer term, this funding will drive the improvements that matter most to individuals’s day by day lives.
“Each pound invested on this analysis is an funding in hope – hope for sooner diagnoses, more practical therapies, and a well being system that actually works for everybody, regardless of the place they dwell or what their background.”