Title: Effects of a demand led knowledge translation service on the uptake and use of research evidence by NHS commissioners compared with lower intensity untargeted alternatives
Funder: Department of Health (England)

Abstract: NHS funding constraints mean that only the most effective best value health care interventions and service improvements should be made available. The Health and Social Care Act emphasises the need to use research evidence in the design and delivery of local services. To do this well commissioners need to make more use of research in deciding which interventions and ways of working will deliver more value from the finite NHS resources available. NIHR has invested significantly in the production of research evidence on the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of interventions to inform decisions and choices. However full uptake of this knowledge to increase efficiency reduce practice variations and to ensure best use of finite resources within the NHS has yet to be realised. NHS managers and clinical leads in Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) can play a key role in improving uptake and use of knowledge to inform commissioning and decommissioning of services. However their ability to recognise and understand valuable research based knowledge is often lacking. We have already developed a briefing and support service tailored to the needs of commissioners and other NHS managers (in a large NIHR research programme focused on West and North Yorkshire). The service identifies appraises and contextualises existing research evidence to inform the real world issues brought to us by local decision makers. Feedback on this service from our NHS partners has been uniformly positive and we have helped some achieve major cost savings through evidence informed service reconfiguration. Whilst we are confident the service can meet the many needs in the local health economies in which it was developed we now need to establish whether this service model really does enhance research evidence use by commissioners compared with other approaches. We plan to do this by undertaking a comparative evaluation with organisations responsible for commissioning NHS services in the North of England. At the start of the study we will assess each CCGs current ability to use evidence to support decision-making. We will repeat the evaluation of evidence use at the end of the main study period to identify changes over time in each of our study areas. The study will take 27 months and will evaluate whether a responsive knowledge translation service increases uptake and use of research evidence by NHS managers compared with less intensive and targeted alternatives.The study will be undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team involving researchers at the University of York and Queens University Belfast and colleagues in the NHS. Appropriate ethical and local governance approval will be sought for the study. A research advisory group will ensure that the project is being managed appropriately and will provide advice on research issues at various stages of the project.The proposed research will generate new knowledge of direct relevance and value to the NHS. The findings will help to clarify which elements of the service are effective in promoting use of research evidence. Those involved in NHS commissioning will be able to use the results to inform how best to build the infrastructure they need to acquire assess adapt and apply research evidence to their support decision-making and fulfil their statutory duties under the Health and Social Care Act.


Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES;8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE