Dr Charlotte Lee joint overall winner of the RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2025

29 October 2026

Dr Charlotte Lee, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Fellow and BPS-accredited Chartered Research Psychologist at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol, is the joint overall winner of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research Paper of the Year 2025. The award was announced at the RCGP Annual Conference in Glasgow today [29 October 2026].

Charlotte's research on weight management services in individuals with severe mental illness, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, also won in the health services research category.

The study found that while people with severe mental illness gain 4kg more weight than peers over 15 years, they aren't offered more weight-management support than people without severe mental illness.

Most concerning was the rapid weight gain in the crucial first five years after diagnosis, when people with SMI gained 4.9kg compared to 1.6kg in people without SMI – a difference of more than 3kg. This weight gain was most pronounced in younger adults aged 40 and under, and those taking antipsychotic medications.

The research was undertaken with colleagues at University of Oxford
while Charlotte was at Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences.

"Weight gain in people with severe mental illness isn't just a number on a scale. It has real consequences for their heart health and life expectancy," said Dr Lee.

"Our findings identify a clear window of opportunity. Embedding weight-management referrals into early psychosis care pathways could reverse years of preventable cardiovascular harm."

The second joint overall winner was a qualitative paper led by Dr Andrew Moriarty at the University of York on the role of primary care in depression relapse, published in the British Journal of General Practice.

A paper on weekly versus daily bathing for people with eczema led by researchers at the University of Nottingham, co-authored by Professor Matthew Ridd, was highly commended in the health services research category.

For more about the awards, see: GP Online.

Joint overall winning paper: Weight trajectories and access to weight management services in individuals with severe mental illness in the UK: a population-based, matched cohort study. Charlotte Lee et al. The Lancet Psychiatry. October 2025.

Further information

About the Centre for Academic Primary Care

The Centre for Academic Primary Care (CAPC) at the University of Bristol is a leading centre for primary care research in the UK, one of nine forming the NIHR School for Primary Care Research. It sits within Bristol Medical School, an internationally recognised centre of excellence for population health research and teaching.

We work with patients and the public to make sure our research on primary care focuses on what really matters to people and communities.

About the National Institute for Health and Care Research

The mission of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:

Funding high quality, timely research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care;
Investing in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services;
Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities, improving the relevance, quality and impact of our research;
Attracting, training and supporting the best researchers to tackle complex health and social care challenges;
Collaborating with other public funders, charities and industry to help shape a cohesive and globally competitive research system;
Funding applied global health research and training to meet the needs of the poorest people in low and middle income countries.

NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its work in low and middle income countries is principally funded through UK Aid from the UK government.