Open POD pod

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It's finally here. The results of the ODDESSI trial. In this episode of OpenPODpod, Fiona listens once again to Russell Razzaque, the Clinical Lead of the NIHR funded ODDESSI trial, which stands for "Open Dialogue: Development and Evaluation of a Social Network Intervention for Severe Mental Illness". Russell worked alongside Professor Steve Pilling who was the Chief Investigator. The trial was a large, multi-centre Cluster Randomised Controlled trial that ran from 2017 to 2025 studying the implementation of Open Dialogue in six pilot sites across five NHS Trusts. Outcomes measured were very much aligned with major national NHS priorities:

1.     Moving care from hospital to community
2.     Improving long-term outcomes
3.     Improving preventative care

As Russell said in a June 2026 blog post "If the Finnish results, particularly the improved patient recovery and reduction of service burden and cost, are replicated by ODDESSI, then it will be a landmark finding, and could potentially lead to an implementation programme that accelerates the transformation of mental healthcare towards a model that is more relational, achieves better recovery, better patient experience and is far more cost effective."(edited from www.bacp.co.uk)

Peer workers up and down the UK are incredibly excited to hear this episode and read the ODDESSI paper which is being published in The Lancet Psychiatry on August 27th 2026. 

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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Welcome back to Season 4 of OpenPODpod. A very short teaser of the upcoming ODDESSI reveal part one. Russell and Fiona spoke a while ago and now we are nearly there. Watch this space! Next episode 27th August 2026. 

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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Guests live on stage talking about POD. Live special from CNWL November POD conference 2025.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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Keith Bryant, CEO of the Open Dialogue Centre came all the way from Australia to see what CNWL are doing with Peer Open Dialogue in their Westminster pilot. It was really good to meet him. In this episode, Keith reflects with Gareth Jarvis and Fiona Eastmond about all things Peer Open Dialogue in Westminster.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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Fiona talks to Russell about what his journey with Peer Informed Open Dialogue has been like ahead of the long-awaited publication of the results of the ODESSI trial.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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In episode 7 of Season 3 of OpenPODpod we hear Lauren, Advanced Lived Experience Practitioner at CNWL, telling us how learning about Open Dialogue led her to peer working. Along the way we reminisce about chocolate factories, the first ever POD cohort, and Lauren’s experiences as a healthcare support worker-turned-peer. As we reflect, we look through different lenses to learn about the unique value of peer working in Open Dialogue – the P in the POD.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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In this episode Gareth and Fiona are joined by Mia Kurtti, who has been working at the heart of what we now call Open Dialogue as it developed in Finland. We ask for her reflections on how this way of working came about and how something that originated in rural Finland can be translated to British shores and embedded into the NHS with our diverse urban populations.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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In a first for the podcast, Fiona interviews someone who is receiving Open Dialogue in the form of network meetings. Our guest's experience is moving, touching and real, and they have asked to remain anonymous. This episode has been completely co-produced: our guest edited the whole thing with Fiona, going through every word until we were both completely comfortable and happy with it. We are very proud of this episode and hope that it will be the first of many.  

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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Here at CNWL where Fiona and Gareth are based we had a visit from Adrian James, NHS England’s medical director for mental health and neurodiversity. Adrian loved what we are doing in the pilot phase of Peer-informed Open Dialogue. Adrian spent most of his time with people who use our services in South Westminster and who have been benefitting from the introduction of Peer- informed Open Dialogue. We managed to catch him for 10 minutes with the roving mike and here is what he had to say.   

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More words and thoughts on the growing world of Open Dialogue from IMDRAP 2024 with Brian Campbell from East London.

POD at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

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