News and Progress
We will update this page to share findings from our results as and when they are ready, including links to open access publications. Our final results should be ready in the summer of 2026.
2022
The research team, including the Project Manager and Research Assistants, were recruited during the first few months of 2022. Our study protocol was published in BMC Psychiatry.
In June 2022, the study was approved by the North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee (reference number 22/NE/0067), and we immediately started to recruit participants to Component 1, our national survey. Participants who were recruited to Component 1, were also recruited to Component 3, which is our cohort study.
2023
Due to delays with recruiting participants to Component 1, we requested for a 15-month extension to the study. This extension was granted during the summer of 2023, and this extended the end date for the ACER study from 31st March 2025 to 30th June 2026.
2024
We completed recruitment to Component 1 in March 2024, and we will finish collecting data for Component 3 by the end of 2025, as this is when our final 18-month follow-up will be due.
2025
In January 2025, we completed recruitment to Component 2, which is our qualitative study. We are currently analysing the data we collected for this part of the study. We received additional funding from NIHR to expand Component 2 to include sites which do not have any local NHS inpatient rehabilitation services to investigate how people with complex psychosis are supported in their recovery in these areas. We completed recruitment to this extra part of Component 2 in September 2025.
In early November 2025, we completed data collection for Component 3 and have started to prepare the dataset for analysis.
We have received the data that we need for Component 4 from NHS England and are currently cleaning this data which we will then analyse.
2026
By the start of 2026, we had completed all research activities on the ACER study, meaning that we have completed all participant recruitment and data collection. So, in 2026, our main focus is on analysing our data and sharing our findings.
We are hosting a webinar for our participating sites on the 8th of June. We are also planning to present our findings at a number of conferences and publish our results in open access peer reviewed journals. We will add links to our publications on this website.
The ACER study is due to end on the 31st of August 2026.
