Care homes’ safety culture and sensemaking
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding care homes safety: Safety culture and sensemaking in non-mainstream care settings
IRAS ID
228045
Contact name
Stephen Timmons
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 1 days
Research summary
Care homes’ safety culture and sensemaking
Care homes provide essential care to over 450,000 older people in the UK who require 24-hour support to meet their daily needs. As this population is often unable to care for themselves, they require care staff to provide care and maintain their safety. Although care homes have three times the number of beds as NHS services in the UK, safety in this setting has not been widely researched. More research is needed to understand the safety culture in care homes and how people understand safety.
The study aims to explore safety in care homes by looking at safety culture and how people understand safety. This is an important topic nationally as the study hopes to reveal ways to promote and improve safety in care homes and capture examples of safety cultures in care homes.
The study will take place in three care homes, including care homes with and without nursing staff over a period of 15 months. The study will use a mixture of observations and interviews with care home residents, their families and care home staff. This will provide insight into the care homes’ safety culture and how people make sense of safety in this setting.
REC name
West Midlands - Coventry & Warwickshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0373
Date of REC Opinion
29 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion