The new NIHR CLAHRC West Midlands is a five-year initiative which commenced in January 2014 with a mission to create lasting and effective collaborations across health and social care organisations, universities (Birmingham, Warwick and Keele) and local authorities to improve the services we can deliver for patient benefit.

The initiative builds on work already carried out under the successful CLAHRC pilot in Birmingham and Black Country and we are delighted that we have been able to further our geographical spread across the West Midlands to continue evaluating and developing health services over the next five years.

CLAHRC West Midlands is funded through a £10million investment from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) together with a further £20.6million matched funding provided by collaborative partners. We are focusing our research on four crucial areas of health:

• Theme 1 – Maternity and Child Health
• Theme 2 – Prevention and Early Intervention in Youth Mental Health
• Theme 3 – Prevention and Detection of Diseases
• Theme 4 – Chronic Diseases (Integrated and Holistic Care)

This work is supported by new scientific ways to measure the impact of changes and to make sure the best care is spread so that it can be delivered everywhere.

Cross-cutting topics include:

• Theme 5 - Implementation and Organisational Studies
• Theme 6 - Research Methods

This will only work if people who need to use our services are involved in all aspects of our work. We are fully committed to making sure this happens. If you would like to be involved please get in touch.

In five years, the outcome should be better health, a better prospect of staying healthy, and a service in which every pound of the public’s contribution goes on services that use the best evidence of what works. The results we obtain will be shared around the world, so that people everywhere can learn from our achievements. See also the Department of Health press release (www.gov.uk/government/news/researchers-get-124m-funding-to-tackle-major-health-challenges)