Devon Partnership NHS Trust provides a range of high-quality specialist mental health, learning disability and neurodiversity services for the people of Devon, the wider Southwest region and nationally. We employ around 3,600 staff.
During the course of a year, as an organisation, we receive around 74,000 referrals and we are supporting around 26,000 people every month.
We are passionate about promoting good mental health and wellbeing. We strive to use the expertise and resources within our organisation, and through our partnerships, to deliver high quality services that are safe and focused on people’s recovery.
Research snapshot
We are proud to be a research-active organisation, supporting a large number of commercial and non-commercial clinical trials across a range of conditions such as dementia, psychosis, depression and anxiety and eating disorders. We have a large team of research associates, research nurses and mental health practitioners dedicated to working on research at DPT. We deliver trial in three hospital locations, Exeter, North Devon and Torbay; multiple community hubs across Devon and in patient’s homes.
We have recruited 1,442 participants to dementia studies and 406 across other studies. A total of 1848 participants in (2024/25). In 2024/25 we had 35 portfolio studies contributing to our recruitment. This ranks us as joint 9th nationally when compared to other NHS mental health trusts in terms of the number of open studies.
We have recruited to 5 commercial studies in this FY either as full sites or as participant identifying sites.
We deliver research studies under the umbrella of the Regional Research Delivery Network (Southwest Peninsula) which is part of the NHS National Institute for Health and Care Research. We have experienced Principal Investigators, Co-Investigators and Study Co-ordinators who are trained in Good Clinical Practice and have robust processes in place to ensure effective research management and governance and commercial research trial delivery and assurance.
“Our team was the first to recruit to a leading international commercial study looking at the efficacy of a digital health app to improve cognitive function in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Currently we remain the highest recruiter across all sites.”
Our facilities
We have dedicated clinical space to conduct research activities. We also have access to essential research related equipment including:
- Centrifuge
- Monitored sample fridge
- Monitored Investigational Medicinal Product fridge
How to find us
Research and Development
Wonford House Hospital
Dryden Road
Exeter
EX2 5AF
Get in touch
If you want to find out any more about the research we are doing or if you have any questions, please email the team on dpn-tr.research@nhs.net or phone on 01392674117.
If you are a research team looking to run your study within Devon Partnership NHS Trust, please email the team on dpt.researcheoi@nhs.net
