The NIHR's mission is to improve the health and wealth of the nation.
Funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, we invest over £1 billion a year in research that provides people working in the front lines of the NHS, public health and social care with the evidence they need to better support patients, service users and the public.
Read about how our work is influencing care, and making a positive difference to people, and the economy.
These are the stories of our research
Midwife-led models of continuity of care improve outcomes for pregnant women. Working with hospital trusts, managers and frontline staff has enabled the development of a new care pathway and guidelines to implement it in a sustainable way.
An online diabetes education tool has been shown to help patients control blood sugar levels and is now being considered for roll out across the country by NHS England.
NIHR-funded research has developed ‘smart glasses’ that have been developed to improve sight using real-time image enhancement software.
A treatment for children with a rare form of childhood dementia has made a dramatic difference to their outcomes. The UK arm of the drug trial took place at the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre where today 19 patients receive regular therapy.
Exercise programmes reduce falls among the over 65s by almost a quarter.
Public engagement from the outset of research helped NIHR researchers develop a website to explain complex and sensitive children’s heart surgery data to the public. The lessons learned led to a best practice guide for researchers involving patients and the public in research.
Faced with a growing burden of liver disease, researchers at the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre reimagined the way that patients could be diagnosed in community settings. Their pathway has been tested and is being taken up by the NHS to the benefit of patients.
A blood test has been shown to speed up diagnosis of pre-eclampsia and help determine which women are at most risk of developing severe complications. The test is now widely available across the NHS.
A new approach to the prevention of challenging behaviour among people with learning disabilities in social care settings has reduced challenging behaviour by two thirds and been rolled out across 800 residential settings.
Dr Pearse Keane, NIHR Clinician Scientist, is responsible for a research collaboration that has the potential to save sight.