CPFT psychiatrist awarded prestigious fellowships to improve community mental health care
Psychiatrist Dr Narut Pakunwanich has joined CPFT this month and hopes to improve mental health care in UK communities, supported by two prestigious research fellowships to harness digital innovations and learn from health services internationally.
The UK is facing rapidly increasing mental health challenges, with more than 90% of cases cared for in the community. This can create particular issues for communities most in need, including ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ and lower socioeconomic groups.
Through his Churchill Fellowship on Promoting Lifelong Health - won during his time at Addenbrooke's Hospital - and an academic clinical fellowship from CPFT, Narut will learn about mental health innovations and best practices in other parts of the world and explore how to apply these in community mental healthcare.
Narut said: “We need to do much more to support patients in the UK with mental health needs, particularly in underserved communities. Countries like Japan and South Korea have created cutting-edge solutions to meet these challenges. I am eager to learn more about them and see how we can make them an effective part of NHS services.”
The countries Narut plans to visit during his Churchill Fellowship support advanced, ageing populations with high mental health needs and a strong stigma against seeking support. This has created pressure on mental health provisions that has driven rapid innovation focused on communities and technology.
These innovations include using emerging technology and online media to support younger generations, and delivering community-centred therapies based around meditation, natural spaces (such as Shinrin-Yoku “forest bathing”) and patient support networks.
Through his CPFT fellowship, Narut plans to work with patients to adapt these approaches to meet the mental health needs of the UK population, exploring how they could be delivered nationally and locally through the new Neighbourhood Health Service and NHS 10-year plan.
The fellowships were awarded following Narut's successful work as an academic psychiatrist at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) and the University of Cambridge.
Professor Graham Murray, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and a consultant psychiatrist at CPFT, who has supervised Dr Pakunwanich’s academic work, said: “Congratulations Narut on winning two prestigious and highly competitive fellowships! Joining CPFT on an Academic Clinical Fellowship and being awarded the Churchill Fellowship will support and boost his progress within integrated clinical and academic psychiatry training. We look forward to Narut sharing his learning from other health systems to improve community mental health care at CPFT.”
The Churchill Fellowships support UK citizens to improve systems and industries in the UK by learning from innovations and best practices in other parts of the world.
