International models of advance care planning: An economic perspective
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Learning from international models of advance care planning to inform evolving practice in England. An economic perspective
IRAS ID
184333
Contact name
Josie Dixon
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
London School of Economics and Political Science
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
15/IEC08/0044, SCREC reference number
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 28 days
Research summary
The project will work with five established initiatives, in the US and Australia, that engage people, usually experiencing serious illness, in advance care planning (ACP) and which use, or plan to use, social workers, social care staff and volunteers in the delivery of their programs. The project will employ ‘an economic lens’, looking systematically at the activities and resources needed to deliver such programs.
It will work closely with the programmes to develop a 'costing methodology' for identifying the types and level of resources used to deliver the programs. This methodology will be designed to be applied, with small adaptations, more widely, including in England.
The project will gather detailed activity and resource use data from all five programmes, making comparisons between programmes and exploring how resource use and practice varies, for example, when working with people with different conditions or where employing facilitators with different professional backgrounds. Using qualitative methods, we will identify perspectives on what constitutes cost-effective practice in areas of high or variable resource use.
We will consider ACP as a complex intervention, mapping the activities undertaken to deliver programs and perceived benefits and outcomes, and comparing these to theoretical models in the literature. We will identify consequent 'weak points' in the causal chain and implementation challenges. We will gather perspectives on effective practice in these areas.
Additionally, we will conduct expert interviews in the UK, establish an advisory panel and conduct stakeholder workshops (of experts, practitioners, policy-makers, commissioners, academics and service users and carers) to draw out learning for practice in England. There will be a special focus throughout on people with a diagnosis of dementia and on the social care role.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
15/IEC08/0044
Date of REC Opinion
9 Jul 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion