Engagement and outreach
1. Health and wellbeing outreach in our communities
Medical students teach life-saving skills
More than 100 pupils at Lostock Hall Academy in Preston received basic life support and defibrillator training from Lancaster medical students. Reported in January 2025, the training formed part of Restart a Heart, an annual initiative led by Resuscitation Council UK to improve survival from cardiac arrests outside hospital. Medical students Alex Liloglou and Shobana Satchithananthan, the Medical School’s 2025 Restart a Heart coordinators, organised the sessions with fellow students and Clinical Skills Educator Jill Sweetman. Across five classes, pupils learned to recognise cardiac arrest, perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use a defibrillator.
Bringing health research to local families
University research reached local families through Campus in the City 2025, a two-day festival held across three venues with more than 30 family activities. Health-related highlights included a Teddy Bear Hospital and the Great Cholesterol and Artery Challenge, a hands-on activity exploring cholesterol and how it affects the body. The event gave families the chance to meet researchers and explore health science outside a lecture theatre.
Making care proceedings clearer for families
Parents and professionals facing the possibility of a baby being taken into care at or soon after birth were supported through Lancaster’s collaboration with Better Start Blackpool. Led by Professor Leon Cruickshank, the co-design project began in 2023 and brought together Blackpool Council, NHS partners and Better Start. The team produced three sets of accessible documents explaining a complex process. A May 2025 Lancaster case study reported that the materials were being used across Blackpool's health and social care services, with a formal evaluation under way.
Listening to displaced communities about wellbeing
In November 2025, Dr Temidayo Eseonu, Lecturer in Politics and Policy, began provided to refugees and people seeking asylum in the Blackpool area. Commissioned by Blackpool Poverty Truth, the evaluation runs until March 2026 and uses focus group discussions to gather participants' experiences. The work aims to inform how local services meet the mental health and wellbeing needs of displaced communities.
Using art to build a sense of belonging
Artwork shaped by women from the local refugee and asylum-seeking community featured in Bridging Worlds: Enclosures and Openings, a mixed-media exhibition in the University Library from 9 to 20 June 2025, during Refugee Week. Lancaster PhD artist James Fox developed the exhibition in conversation with community members and artists, drawing on a Migration Art course led by Somayeh Roostaei and Eleanor Denvir. The workshops, run by Global Link and funded by Lancashire County Council’s Refugee Integration Team, aimed to build participants’ confidence, self-acceptance and sense of freedom in their new surroundings.
Supporting vulnerable residents through a community garden
In spring 2025, 抖阴探探App's Wind Turbine Community Benefit Fund supported The Olive Branch, a Lancaster charity that helps people experiencing hardship, including foodbank users, families and people seeking asylum. Funding helped create a garden with seating and planters outside the charity's premises, providing a more welcoming environment for visitors. The charity also connects people with support for mental health, domestic abuse and debt. Lancaster funded the garden; The Olive Branch delivered the project and its community services.
Supporting refugee survivors of torture
In November 2025, Lancaster's Professor Victoria Canning launched Supporting Survival, developed with the Danish Institute Against Torture (DIGNITY). The 52-card toolkit draws on research and the experiences of survivors and practitioners to support discussion of torture, trauma and barriers to care. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Lancaster's Impact Acceleration Account, it was being distributed through NGOs and international partners for use by survivors and those supporting them, including health and mental health practitioners.
2. Partnerships with health institutions to improve health outcomes
Expanding online rehabilitation with NHS partners
East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and 抖阴探探App work together on NeuroRehabilitation OnLine (NROL), which delivers cognitive, communication and physical therapy by video call for people recovering from stroke and other neurological conditions. After NROL was rolled out across Lancashire and South Cumbria, new 12-month SBRI Healthcare funding announced in March 2025 was awarded to support its expansion into Cheshire and Merseyside, with Lancaster academics providing oversight and evaluation. Professor Louise Connell holds a joint role in allied health rehabilitation at 抖阴探探App and East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust, connecting academic research with NHS practice.
Planning healthier environments with the NHS
In February 2025, on the future of Clay Fields, a 106-acre site in Whalley acquired by Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust plans a flagship community for restorative and regenerative health and wellbeing, with NHS services in one of four proposed zones. Lancaster set out how its expertise in data science, leadership, design, sustainability and health technologies could support the project over the next ten years.
Researching better end-of-life care together
between 抖阴探探App and the charity Sue Ryder was announced in April 2025 to improve palliative, end-of-life and bereavement care. Dr Maddy French took up a new Senior Research Fellow post through the partnership between the University’s International Observatory on End-of-Life Care and Sue Ryder, building on her research into equity of access to hospice and palliative care services. The post connects academic research directly with a national care provider, so that findings can shape how services support patients and families.
Health@Lancaster: joining up expertise for healthier communities
Health@Lancaster connects researchers across eight thematic areas of health and care, including public health and health inequalities, mental health, health and care service delivery, and sustainability, environment and health. It identifies areas where clusters of academics can work with partners on significant challenges, and its leadership team provides strategic oversight so that external organisations can find relevant expertise. A contact route lets organisations interested in working with the research teams get in touch, opening the way to joint projects.
3. Community mental health partnerships
Supporting children through school transitions
Children’s experiences of moving between schools are the focus of collaborative work by Dr Jude Lunn of Lancaster’s Division of Health Research and Jane Booth of Headssup. At a Health@Lancaster session in December 2025, they described evidence-based support projects for children moving through education settings across 80 primary and secondary schools in Lancashire. The partnership brings academic expertise into school-facing support for children’s emotional and social wellbeing.
4. Global health research and capacity building
Building expertise to tackle neglected diseases
Lancaster's Centre for Health Informatics, Computing and Statistics (CHICAS) is a World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre specialising in geostatistical methods for neglected tropical disease research. Its international work has involved organisations including the Carter Center, Sightsavers, Evidence Action and the Fred Hollows Foundation. In March 2025, CHICAS convened an international technical meeting involving representatives from ministries of health, NGOs, universities and global health organisations across six WHO regions. The meeting developed proposals for different levels of geostatistics training, regional training networks and long-term funding and collaboration, aiming to strengthen local expertise and support evidence-based disease-control decisions.
