117 participants were recruited in January - the largest number of recruits in a month so far. This graph shows the number of recruits per month up to January 2026. There are currently 450 participants in the trial - over a third of the way to the overall target of 1252 participants.
Congratulations to North Lincs and Central Cheshire for becoming the first sites to reach the site recruitment target of 104 participants! For those interested, North Lincs got there first, on 02/02/2026.
5 more teams have been activated since the last update. In November, we activated South Somerset and Taunton Talking Therapy teams, within Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, as well as Ealing Talking Therapies (West London NHS Trust). Mind Matters (Surrey Talking Therapies, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS FT) were also activated in December, and City and Hackney (Homerton Healthcare NHS FT) were activated on 19/01/2026.
Our Participating Teams page provides an overview of sites on the study. South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS FT withdrew, with their teams Gateshead and South Tyneside. This brings us to 12 active teams, which is the minimum target for the study. We aim to activate two more teams in the next couple of weeks: Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (Vita Health Group), and Westminster (Central and North West London NHS FT).
In terms of recruitment of participants at sites, here are some of the highlights:
Central Cheshire and North Lincs have 94 and 99 participants respectively, approaching their target of 104.
West Lancs are at 52 participants, exactly half way to their target.
Blackburn with Darwen are now recruiting well, with 24 participants, alongside North Yorkshire with 33 participants.
York and Selby are off to a fantastic start - one therapist recruited 19 participants in 1 month.
All active sites have recruited at least one participant.
There are now a total of 348 participants in the trial!
Thank you again to those of you who have joined the trial and have completed your baseline questionnaire. Participants who were recruited in July and August will now be receiving their 6 month questionnaires, so please keep an eye out for those. As a reminder, we will be contacting you 6 months, 12 months and 18 months after your Talking Therapies assessment. Your answers are vital to our understanding how the StratCare app works for patients in Talking Therapies, so thank you again for your participation.
Overall, we are very pleased with the progress made in the last 2 months. Thank you to the Research and Development and clinical teams for persevering with the training and setup process.
North Lincs and Central Cheshire, the two highest recruiting teams, are now neck and neck with 69 participants each. West Lancs are also recruiting well, having recruited 21 participants in their first 5 weeks. Thank you again to all of the PWPs at these sites for your commitment to the study, your recruitment numbers are fantastic and this is crucial for the study at this time. The total number of participants is 167.
There is more good news - two more teams were activated on 05/11/2025. These are York and Selby and North Yorkshire, within the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS FT. There are also a few more teams close to activation, which we look forward to announcing.
Recruitment is going well at sites, and there are now 105 participants in the trial. North Lincs Talking Therapies have had a very successful start to recruitment, enrolling 39 participants in the first 6 weeks. 3 more teams started recruitment on 02/10/2025 - Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn and Rossendale, and West Lancashire (Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS FT). The study team are still recruiting sites, and there are a couple of sites close to activation. Thank you everyone for your work and involvement in the trial, we will keep you updated.
Yesterday, we activated North Lincs Talking Therapies (Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS FT) as the second site on the study, and they will begin recruitment shortly. We also trained another site, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS FT, on the 1st September. This site has three teams: Blackburn with Darwen, Hyndburn and Rossendale, and West Lancashire, and we hope to have these activated soon. Recruitment for Central Cheshire Talking Therapies is ongoing, and there are now 34 participants on the trial.
Thank you to the therapists and research staff for all of your work enrolling patients onto the trial. With just one team, 24 participants have been recruited in the first month.
The first trial participants have been recruited - there are now 2 participants in the trial.
We are very pleased to announce that the first trial site has been activated and recruitment can begin. We are working with other trial sites to get them set up and ready to start recruiting.
With the StratCare app finalised and other checks and approvals in place, the trial has been activated and we can start to activate trial sites.
The trial protocol has been reviewed and approved by the London - Brighton and Sussex Research Ethics Committee (ref 24/LO/0576). We are now working to recruit Talking Therapies teams into the trial.