• To support service user involvement throughout the MHRN including its eight hubs of which the North London Hub is one
• To raise awareness of service user involvement in mental health research at a national level, to publicize opportunities for people to get involved in research projects, and to organize meetings and conferences for service users and others 

What does Service Users in Research do?

This is a complicated question. We do quite a lot and we want to do more. Over the ten months or so that we have been going we have concentrated on taking a very practical approach to supporting user involvement in the MHRN’s regional offices or ‘hubs’. This has included:

• Establishing a committee of service users from every MHRN hub (including parts of the country not covered by a hub). This committee includes representation from the North London Hub
• We have also developed a document called the ‘Menu of Service User Involvement’ to be used as a framework for user involvement throughout the MHRN.
• Producing a payments policy for service users and providing access to a specialist helpline to help people who may have problems receiving payment whilst in benefits
• I visit each hub quite regularly supporting meetings of service users and speaking at hub conferences. I spoke at the North East hub conference in November 2009 for example.

Aside from this we also produce a quarterly newsletter, a bulletin which is produced every few weeks or so with opportunities for people to get involved in specific mental health research projects. We also commission service users to write plain English ‘lay’ summaries for all studies that the MHRN supports. In 2009 we produced a short film showing how service users can get involved in the MHRN.     

What will Service Users in Research in future?

Well we want to continue to do all the things that we do already but some of the things that we want to do in the future is:

• To establish user involvement in commercially funded studies and mental health research involving children and adolescents. There has not been much involvement in these two areas to date.
• We want to work with other organizations to maximize the number of opportunities for service users to get involved in mental health research
• We also want to further support researchers who are looking to find service users to get involved in their research but many not be sure of how best to do this

But we also want to get more people from the north east of England involved in mental health research. And not just service users, but researchers, and the public too. And we will continue to support the good work that the MHRN North London hub does.      

Want to find out more?

You can find out more about the work of Service Users in Research by clicking on the ‘Service Users and Carers’ tab on the MHRN website: www.mhrn.info.We put out monthly bulletins on the website, together lots of other useful information such as a comprehensive guide to making payments to people on benefits, and a jargon buster.

Want to get involved in Service Users in Research?

If you would like to get involved with Service Users in Research (membership is open to everyone and is free) the please email your contact details to mhrnppi@kcl.ac.uk or phone 0207 848 0644 so that we can send you more info and a membership form. We will also be holding a conference which is free to attend in London on the 8th of March 2010. Please see the flyer for this conference which is included in this newsletter.

The Structure of Service Users in Research

The staff of Service Users in Research are all part of the MHRN Coordinating Centre which is hosted jointly by the Institute of Psychiatry in London and the University of Manchester. The MHRN Associate Director for User and Carer Involvement is Professor George Szmukler who is an experienced researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry.

The Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Manager is Joanne Ashcroft who is based at the University of Manchester. Service Users in Research also has an administrator called Lorrain McPherson who works with FACTOR, the MHRN network for carers with an interest in mental health research.

Service Users in Research Coordinator

Thomas Kabir is the Service Users in Research Coordinator. Thomas is from London and was a mental health advocate in the capital for three years. He is also involved in the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme for London. (www.iapt.nhs.uk) He says: ‘We are really keen to hear your views of what you would  If you have any suggestions about how Service Users in Research might develop, please contact me.

You can email Thomas at: Thomas.Kabir@kcl.ac.uk

Want to get involved in Service Users in Research?

If you would like to get involved with Service Users in Research (membership is open to everyone and is free) the please email your contact details to mhrnppi@kcl.ac.uk or phone 0207 848 0644 so that we can send you more info and a membership form.