Award Title: Evidence review facility to support national policy development and evaluation
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Background  The decisions of professionals and policymakers should be informed by rigorous, transparent and up-to-date research because their actions can do harm as well as good.  Systematic reviews of research are required, because individual studies can be atypical and subject to bias and chance.  Robust, timely and relevant evidence syntheses, produced through dialogue with policymakers and in consultation with local users, can inform the development and implementation of national policy.     Aims  We propose to continue to provide the bespoke reviews service we currently provide for the DHSC.  The service will:    facilitate the use of research evidence through rigorous reviews  translate review findings for use in policy contexts  continue to develop the theoretical, methodological and organisational foundations for evidence synthesis for policy and practice.      Research plan  A collaboration between three leading organisations in evidence synthesis (including systematic reviews, scoping reviews and evidence mapping) is proposed: The EPPI-Centre (UCL), the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (University of York), Faculty of Public Health & Policy (LSHTM). Led by the EPPI-Centre, the Facility will:       Maintain an efficient and responsive review facility that delivers timely, rigorous, relevant and appropriate reviews to policy customers  Develop and maintain an inter/transdisciplinary team which utilises and develops appropriate methodologies  Engage with stakeholders and other users in order to ensure our reviews reflect a range of perspectives and are cognisant of the context of their intended application.   Research team  The collaboration is exceptionally strong in terms of its experience in: conducting reviews; developing methods; and engaging with policymakers and other stakeholders and ensuring review findings are useful to decision-makers. The team has worked across health and social care, public health, policy analysis, evaluation, and public involvement and is involved in a range of national and international networks spanning each domain.  The PIs will be responsible for the programme of work as a whole, including liaison with the Department of Health and Social Care and policy teams. A management team of named co-investigators will meet regularly to monitor progress. Experienced researchers will lead reviews and user engagement activities, with specialist input from members of other organisations, when required. Information technology support and publications, marketing and communications will be managed through the EPPI-Centre. Finances will be managed by UCL.  A programme advisory group and ad hoc advisory groups (to include all relevant stakeholders) for individual reviews will guide the work.  Potential impact   Research is only one piece of the evidence jigsaw that inform decisions, however we expect that national policy will be informed and impacted by the results of our work.  Our key audience will be the policy  customers , with whom we engage directly. Successful dissemination of outputs requires focusing the research in terms of setting, audience, and timeliness. Our work in patient and public involvement and setting up ad hoc advisory groups will all be valuable means of communicating research findings.  In addition, all three organisations are well known in the Cochrane and Campbell Collaborations and other international networks, offering opportunities for impact in terms of review findings, and methodological development.

Lay Abstract: What is the Policy Review Facility?  The Policy Review Facility is a team of researchers from three universities (University College London, the University of York and the London School of Hygiene and & Tropical Medicine). We are experts in producing  evidence reviews  that bring together the findings from high- quality research. Our reviews help decision- makers and health and social care professionals make decisions about the services they provide and how best to deliver them.  How do we make sure our reviews are reliable?  We use a scientific and systematic approach to find research, to assess whether it is trustworthy and to bring the evidence together. This helps to ensure we produce a complete, fair and reliable picture of the evidence. Members of our team have been doing this kind of work for many years and we have a world-wide reputation for producing high- quality evidence reviews. We are also known for developing new methods to ensure evidence reviews meet the needs of decision-makers.  How do we make sure our reviews address important issues?   We work closely with the people who ask us to undertake reviews to understand their needs. We also aim to make our reviews relevant and useful to professionals who might use a review to help deliver services, as well as to patients and other service- users affected by those decisions. We involve patients and the public in our reviews to understand the issues that are important to them. We work with service providers to understand how services are currently delivered and how an evidence review might support future delivery.  How do we involve patients and the public?  When starting a new review we invite patients and the public to meet with us and talk about their experiences of a condition and the services they receive. Recently, we met with a group of young people affected by adverse childhood experiences who told us about the kinds of problems they face and the services they would find useful. This helped us to understand how existing research relates to their experiences and what new research may be needed. Patients and the public also help with communicating review findings.  How do we make sure people know about and use our findings?   We communicate the findings of our evidence reviews in different ways.  In a recent review on Lyme disease, patient organisations helped us to understand the language that patients prefer when reading reports and they made our reviews available on their websites. In a review on weight management services, the people responsible for delivering services advised us how best to share our findings.  All our reviews are available, free of charge. We offer short, Plain English summaries and in-depth reports.

Research Activity Codes: 8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health Categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE