A defining feature of the IoPPN is its partnership with the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the largest mental health trust in the country. As well as serving the communities of South London, the Trust provides specialist services for people from across the UK and beyond.
The IoPPN and the Maudsley NHS Trust subscribe to a Statement of Common Purpose:
'The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation work together to establish the best possible care for people who experience mental health problems.
A key joint aim is promoting excellence in research development and teaching in the sciences and disciplines key to the understanding and treatment of mental disorders and related disorders of the brain.
This knowledge and the skills thus gained will be applied to prevention of these disorders, finding the most effective treatments and developing the best service models for the community.'
This collaboration has helped us translate research findings into novel treatments:
- cognitive-behaviour therapy for schizophrenia;
- computer-delivered self-help for bulimia;
- take-home naloxone strategies to prevent drug overdose;
- community-based ‘early intervention’ services to treat schizophrenia;
- and ‘memory clinics’ to detect and treat dementia – most of these advances are now part of NICE guidelines and national policy.
The IoPPN continues its partnership with the Maudsley NHS Trust in driving world-class clinical research, through joint initiatives such as the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre at Maudsley NHS and King's. The partnership also allows opportunities for world-class undergraduate and postgraduate training in clinical and academic psychiatry.
The long history of IoPPN and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
In 1896, the eminent neurologist Sir Frederick Mott put forward a proposal for the then novel concept of university training courses in subjects related to psychiatry.
In 1914, Mott’s idea began to take shape when London County Council agreed to establish a hospital in Denmark Hill where research and education would be embedded with care. Made possible by a generous donation from Dr Henry Maudsley, the Maudsley Hospital opened in 1923.
Within ten years, the associated Maudsley Hospital Medical School was officially recognised by the University of London. The School awarded one of the first Diplomas in Psychological Medicine in the English-speaking world, thereby formalising psychiatry as a specialist discipline of Medicine in the Commonwealth.
"…to promote exact scientific research into the causes and pathology of insanity, with the hope that much may yet be done for its prevention and successful treatment…
Dr Henry Maudsley
The School retained its name until 1948 when it became a founding member of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation and changed its name to the Institute of Psychiatry. In 1997, the Institute became a school of King’s College London.
In 2014, the remit of the Institute was broadened to include all brain and behavioural sciences, and was renamed the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.