Award Title: Developing palliative and end-of-life care research partnerships and capacity in the North West Coast of England
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Research is an important part of excellent care, with health and social care organisations involved in research activity known to provide better care. However, in the North West Coast area of England we know that research activity in the important area of palliative and end-of-life care is much lower than in other parts of the country. This is despite much higher needs than on average. It is important that we invest in research in North West Coast England to ensure that the particular needs of the populations in this area are properly taken account of, and that care is planned and provided to meet these needs in the best possible way. _x000D_
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The purpose of this partnership is to bring together clinicians, health care organisations, researchers and the public to effectively plan important and high-quality research in palliative and end-of-life care that is relevant to North West Coast and more generally across the country. _x000D_
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Over 18 months we will do three types of activity:_x000D_
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First, we will work with patients and family carers, clinicians, research nurses, and healthcare organisations (including hospitals, primary care, hospices), to understand what the main barriers are to palliative care research locally, and how we can best overcome these to meet the needs of those in the North West Coast area. _x000D_
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Second, we will work to develop clinically relevant, high quality research grant applications in areas of identified need. We will support junior researchers and doctors, nurses and other health and social care professionals newer to research to be an important part of developing these applications so that they learn how to develop strong and excellent research applications now and for the future._x000D_
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Third, we will put solutions in place identified in the first part of this work to help people to conduct research in this area. This might include training people to discuss palliative care research with possible participants, helping people to develop research policies to streamline the ‘red tape’ associated with research, helping patients and the public to be more involved in developing research, and building a long-standing palliative care research network across North West Coast.

Lay Abstract: BACKGROUND We want to build a broad palliative care research partnership across the North West Coast region between Universities, providers, patients and the public, and existing infrastructure such as the CRN and ARC. This will enable the delivery of high quality, practice relevant grant applications that focus on needs, especially those of our underserved populations. The North West Coast has high palliative care need (third highest prevalence in England) and historically low recorded NIHR research activity (second lowest research recruitment rate in England). There are known challenges to conducting research in palliative care such as identification and recruitment of populations, but also challenges of poorly established research infrastructure. Having an active, confident, sustainable palliative care research network across North West Coast will spotlight good research practice, build research capacity, and combat barriers to research._x000D_
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OBJECTIVES_x000D_
i)To develop a sustainable palliative care partnership infrastructure across NWC, embedded within existing organisations such as the CRN and ARC, involving strong PPI, as a focus for palliative and end-of-life care research in the region. _x000D_
ii)To work with palliative care providers, patients and the public, and research staff to further understand local barriers and facilitators to palliative and end-of-life care research, and develop and implement solutions to these barriers. _x000D_
iii)To build clinical capacity in palliative and end-of-life care research through the mentorship of emerging research leaders and share academic expertise across organisations._x000D_
iv)To facilitate the development of high-quality research grant applications that address important clinical research questions that meet the needs of the NWC population (and beyond) focused on the NIHR palliative and end-of-life care calls (NIHR PHR, EME, HS&DR and HTA) in 2022. _x000D_
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PARTNERSHIP PLAN_x000D_
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a)DEVELOP AND EMBED AN ACTIVE PALLIATIVE CARE PARTNERSHIP NETWORK ACROSS NORTH WEST COAST (to meet objective i) Activities to embed this will be actioned throughout the phased activities below. _x000D_
b)PHASE ONE (0-6 months): RAPID IDENTIFICATION OF CURRENT LOCAL BARRIERS TO RESEARCH AND THEIR SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS (to meet objective ii) This will include an online survey and working groups (with providers, research staff, and the public) using nominal group techniques to facilitate a consensus on barriers and solutions to research across NWC. _x000D_
c)PHASE TWO A (7-12 months). PERSONAL MENTORSHIP AND SUPPORT TO CO-DESIGN AND PREPARE RESEARCH GRANT APPLICATIONS (to meet objective iii and iv). This will include peer support and action learning sets, 1:1 mentorship and the buy out of time for emerging research leaders. _x000D_
d)PHASE TWO B (7-18 months). IMPLEMENT IDENTIFIED SOLUTIONS TO ENABLING BETTER PALLIATIVE AND END-OF-LIFE CARE RESEARCH ACROSS NORTH WEST COAST (to meet objectives ii and iv). This will draw from phase one, but may include recruitment training, work on enabling research governance, and further developing our PPI networks. _x000D_
e)PHASE THREE (7-12 months) DEVELOPING AND SUBMITTING HIGH QUALITY CLINICALLY RELEVANT RESEARCH PROPOSALS (to meet objective iv)_x000D_
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The outputs of this work will include; high quality applications to forthcoming palliative care calls; a sustainable infrastructure to facilitate excellent research; greater capacity to engage in palliative and end-of-life care research; and developing communities of practice.

Research Activity Codes: 7.2 END OF LIFE CARE
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE