News

Mental health leaders from the Portuguese Ministry of Health are working with our Trust and University College London (UCL) to deliver an ambitious programme of investment in mental health rehabilitation services across Portugal.

Professor Miguel Xavier, National Coordinator of Mental Health Policy for Portugal and colleague Dr Joaquim Jago, visited our new inpatient rehabilitation services at Highgate East and the Islington community rehabilitation units last year and were so impressed by them that they were able to gain the support of the Portuguese Minister for Health to replicate these services back home.

In March 2025, Prof Helen Killaspy (pictured above) met with the Ministry’s mental health leadership team in Lisbon to plan the project in more detail and visited potential sites for the new services in Lisbon and Coimbra in Central Portugal. A third unit is also planned in Porto in the north of the country.

Staff for these new units will be recruited soon and Prof Killaspy will deliver training for them in the autumn. They will then spend two weeks as clinical observers in the our inpatient rehabilitation services at Highgate East before their own new services open next year.  

Prof Killaspy said:

"This project is a great accolade for the Trust, reinforcing its international reputation as delivering gold standard rehabilitation services for people with the most severe and complex mental health problems.

"At a time when rehabilitation services are under immense scrutiny, it is particularly validating that Professor Xavier and his team have asked us to share our learning and expertise to help develop similarly effective services in their country.

"We are very much looking forward to welcoming our Portuguese colleagues to London later this year and to building on this collaboration in the future."