Improving care services for older people in care homes
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving care for older people who are frail and have chronic illnesses as they move towards the end of life: the integrated community palliative partnership project
IRAS ID
274362
Contact name
Irene J Higginson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
In this study we want to develop a new service that brings together different health and social care teams to better support older people with advanced illness living in care homes. This is important because this group does not always get access to the services they need and can experience uncontrolled symptoms and unplanned hospital admissions towards the end of life. Building on existing literature, the new service will combine palliative care, primary care, social care and other specialised support. It will put the care home residents at the centre and will aim to prevent multiple unplanned hospital admissions.
This study will draw on co-design methods, which means that the experiences and views of patients, family and staff are sought in order to design the key elements of the service. We will conduct 12 interviews with care home residents with advanced illness and their family (up to 6) and 12 with health or social care professionals. We want to understand what is important to them, how they experience services and how services could be improved.
The findings from this will feed into up to four workshops with a mix of health and social care professionals (care home managers, General Practitioners, community nursing, specialist palliative care teams, hospice teams, commissioners) family caregivers and patient representatives. In these workshops we want to explore how these teams may work together to improve care for residents and explore what would be required for a successful roll-out of the service. We will also consider the cost implications through modelling different scenarios. From the findings we will propose a model of care that we can test in a future study.
Patient and public representatives have advised on the development of this study and an advisory group will oversee the study procedures throughout.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
20/IEC08/0004
Date of REC Opinion
18 May 2020
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion