Title: Improving the interactions in urgent care of researchers with patients, clinicians and health service managers: developing training workshops to support knowledge coproduction sustainability
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Research Questions 1) What can the interactions of researchers with patients, clinicians and HSMs reveal about the skills that are required for effective knowledge sharing leading to knowledge coproduction? 2) How can researchers, patients, clinicians and HSMs be supported to develop these skills? Background Academic research is having little influence on the commissioning and design of health care services, and stakeholders are not consulted sufficiently for research to be genuinely informed by their experiences [1-5]. As knowledge that is coproduced by researchers and stakeholders is considered more likely to lead to relevant implementable research and evidence informed service design, there are benefits to adopting the approach [6-9]. Urgent care is an area where stakeholders are incentivised to engage with researchers as demand is overwhelming current services and it commands the largest proportion of health care budgets [10-12]. In some initiatives knowledge has been shared successfully through the interactions of knowledge brokers and embedded researchers but it is not clear how this is achieved [22, 25]. A method for exploring interactions has been developed which consists of two phases, the first is a rapid in-depth investigation and the second consists of the use of feedback and the co-creation of strategies [21]. An adapted version of this method will be used to explore the interactions of researchers with patients, clinicians and HSMs to understand the process of how knowledge is being shared leading to knowledge coproduction. Aims 1) To understand the processes of knowledge sharing leading to knowledge coproduction 2) To identify the key skills for knowledge sharing leading to knowledge coproduction 3) To design training for researchers, patients, clinicians and HSMs to support knowledge sharing leading to knowledge coproduction Methods The study involves four overlapping phases P1: A scoping systematic review will be conducted on knowledge sharing interactions and how to support them in practice. Scoping interviews will be conducted with stakeholders to explore how knowledge is shared in the area of urgent care. P2: Knowledge sharing will be facilitated with patients, clinicians and HSMs and other researchers will be supported to facilitate knowledge sharing with these groups. P3: An in-depth study of P2 with be conducted and analysed in two stages. The first will be conducted by researchers, with these findings fed into a second stage to be conducted by stakeholders. The second stage of analysis will provide recommendations for training P4: The recommendations for training will be refined through consultation with the wider group of stakeholders and training experts to design training for researchers, patients, clinicians and HSMs to support knowledge sharing. This training will be piloted across the UK. Dissemination and impact The findings will be made available to non-academic and academic audiences through a range of means including social media, websites, oral presentations and academic journals. The anticipated impact will result in greater involvement of stakeholders in research applications leading to more relevant research. The involvement of research teams assisting in the design and delivery of health care services in urgent care is another key impact.

Lay abstract: Aims To understand how researchers talk and share knowledge about urgent care with patients, doctors, nurses and health service managers in order to work together more. To use this information to design training to help more researchers, doctors, nurses and health service managers talk and share knowledge together. Background There are benefits to research and health care services if researchers, doctors, nurses and health service mangers talk together and share their knowledge. If researchers talk more with doctors, nurses and health service mangers, research will be more useful and services for patients will benefit. This is not happening as often as it could, which may be because researchers do not feel confident and skilled to work with non-researchers, and non-researchers do not feel confident and skilled to work with researchers. Some researchers who have spent time working in health organisations have the confidence and skills to work effectively with non researchers but we do not know how these have developed. Some non-researchers who have spent time working in universities have also developed confidence and skills to work with researchers. If we could understand more about how these researchers and non-researchers work outside of their usual environment we may be able to improve the skills and confidence of others. If more people could work together in this way, beneficial changes in practice and improvements in the design of services for patients may result. Methods Phase 1, will look at previous studies conducted on how people talk and share knowledge and how this can be supported. Researchers, patients, doctors, nurses and health service managers will be interviewed about how they talk about urgent care. Phase 2, will involve a researcher spending time working outside the university who will talk and share knowledge with patients, doctors, nurses and health service managers about urgent care. The researcher will then support two university based researchers to also share knowledge with patients, doctors, nurses and health service managers about urgent care. Information that captures and records this process will be collected from mapping contacts, interviews with participants, diaries of observations, and audio-recordings of conversations. Phase 3, will analyse the information collected in Phase 2 that will firstly be conducted by researchers experienced in exploring this type of information. A second stage of exploration will then be conducted by a group of patients, doctors, nurses and health service managers. The aim of the first analysis will be to identify the main areas where skills could be improved and the second analysis will look at how these can be developed into recommendations for training. Phase 4, will be the development of training workshops in discussion with patients, doctors, nurses, health service managers and two training experts. These training experts have expertise in conducting practical, skills based training. The workshops will be tested in other areas of the country, to see if people attending them find them acceptable and useful. Patient and public involvement To prepare for this study work was conducted with members of the public in designing a research study. Two online patient groups were consulted to identify the urgent care areas of focus to be used in Phase 2.. Patients will be involved in this study as both advisors and participants. Dissemination The findings from this work will be made available to patients, members of the public, doctors, nurses, health service managers, other health professionals and researchers through a range of means, including the use of social media, websites, oral presentations and academic journals.

Research activity codes: 8.1 ORGANISATION AND DELIVERY OF SERVICES
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE