Title: Peninsula Adult Social Care Research Collaborative (PARC): Embedding research into practice to improve social care outcomes 2
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Background_x000D_ Users of adult social care have a right to expect services to be based on the best evidence. Research_x000D_ should advise services about what helps people best, and what people say they want and need. Social care providers should also get value for money. Research on how to make this happen is limited and of mixed quality. Our key idea is that when researchers move out of universities and into practice settings, they and the service providers and service users and carers can learn from each other. Placing researchers in social care organisations and bringing staff, service users and researchers together will help identify important areas for research and make change happen more quickly, to make a difference to the lives of service users and carers. It is important for everyone using services that there is good research about how well they work, but at present this is limited and more is needed. We want to test a new way of making this happen._x000D_ _x000D_ What we want to do:_x000D_ We will try a new idea: setting up research teams inside social care organisations. We will develop a network of ‘embedded’ research teams. Each team will have a social worker trained to carry out research and an experienced researcher, based in the social care organisation. Senior managers, university staff and other research specialists will form part of a wider team to support them, with service users and carers who wish to become involved. Researchers will learn about service delivery, and practitioners will learn how to do research to help improve services. Embedded teams will also build relationships between practitioners and people receiving services. The networks will produce research that will enable services to improve what they do._x000D_ _x000D_ How we will do this:_x000D_ Embedded teams will use a mix of approaches, including training practitioners so they understand better how to improve what they do through research. They will carry out two research projects to help improve services, and find out how well this approach works. Service users and carers will be an important part of this process. Meaningful involvement with a wide diverse group of experts is an integral feature of the project. We will offer training in research and involvement methods to experts by experience and learn from each other. Our co-applicants worked with experts by experience for many years and our team includes an experienced service user researcher who will be an ‘independent critical friend’. We will actively involve people who use support and services or are carers both when doing the research and sharing our learning. Evaluating our project – finding out how it is working and finding things that are not working as well as we hoped – is an important part of this study to test out our ideas._x000D_ _x000D_ Reaching different people with our work_x000D_ The research networks will work together to:_x000D_ • Co-produce accessible research reports, service evaluations, publications and other outputs, which will be shared regionally and nationally;_x000D_ • Rapidly implement improvements based on research to improve services;_x000D_ • Provide insight into service problems, leading to research tailored to local need._x000D_ _x000D_ Developing future services _x000D_ This is a ‘proof of concept’ study’, meaning we are going to test these ideas and report back to help other organisations decide whether this approach could help them understand issues in their area and support service users and carers in their area better.

Lay abstract: Research questions:_x000D_ 1. Is the embedded Researcher in Residence (RR) model an effective method for sustainably increasing social care research capacity?_x000D_ 2. Is the embedded RR model an effective method for generating agile, timely and generalisable social care research?_x000D_ 3. Is the embedded RR model an effective method for improving social care practice in terms of service user and carer wellbeing, and cost-effectiveness_x000D_ Background_x000D_ This project addresses the long-standing problem of the scarcity of evidence on which to base social care practice and work cultures in which this is under-valued. Demographic changes, rising expectations for personalised care, growing inequalities and the impact of challenges such as Covid-19, are placing more pressure on commissioners and providers of social care to develop effective and efficient services_x000D_ Aims _x000D_ 1. To carry out a proof of concept study to test the feasibility of setting up embedded research teams _x000D_ in adult social care, and, _x000D_ 2. To test feasibility of co-producing generalisable research knowledge of local and national relevance through embedding research teams in social care organisations _x000D_ Objectives_x000D_ • Investing in ‘Practitioner Researchers’ and Researchers in Residence to create social care agency-based research expertise in embedded research teams;_x000D_ • Developing a cross-area research collaborative structure including senior social care staff, commissioners, providers, service users and carers / members of the public, and researchers to support the embedded teams; _x000D_ • Carrying out nationally relevant robust studies of local innovations and/or implementation of evidence informed practice changes._x000D_ _x000D_ The project will have three overlapping Work Streams (WS) leading to completion at 48 months, with the aim of testing the potential of embedded research to establish sustainable positive change in participating agencies and enhance knowledge mobilisation. Two nested packages of research will test the potential for this approach to stimulate and support rigorous locally relevant research. They will be coproduced with stakeholders, including service users and carers. Rigorous formative and summative evaluation will assess the ability of the networks to respond in an agile and timely way to adult social care challenges, and the capacity of the embedded teams to produce generalisable social care research. Two evaluation streams: one formative, Action Research based, and the other summative, with an arms’ length element for a clean room analysis, will gather data on the effectiveness of this approach to stimulate and support research activity in adult social care and its potential for wider implementation.

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