Mixed signals about the mental health of the NHS workforce
Lamb, D, Greenberg, N, Stevelink, SAM, Wessely, S
Abstract
expectations for service-user involvement and leadership in research proposals, and ensure that established bodies of research do not become barriers to authentic community-led innovation. 4,9Too often, funding processes re-inscribe existing hierarchies and established interventions by rewarding proposals that build on, and hew to, existing published work.High-risk high-reward funding streams are typically present in the basic and translational sciences or new research areas such as digital health, with such language rarely used to refer to or fund user-led innovations.To achieve deeper change, funders must be open to new ideas and new directions, guided by those on the receiving end of services.Is the above pipeline merely a pipe dream?Our belief is that senior researchers, large research centres, and training programmes could readily take the steps described above, including substantially greater hiring, mentoring, and support of under-represented students and researchers with lived experience.Were it a priority, research funding bodies could-with relatively minor modifications to programme announcements-