SAFE@HOME V1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Safety and Autonomy For Everyone at Home: SAFE@HOME. Understanding safety, risks and harm-benefit balances arising from home-based care
IRAS ID
358127
Contact name
Andrew Carson-Stevens
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
161525, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 28 days
Research summary
Despite the importance of home-based care, we do not know what ‘good’ care, or how to make that care safe. It is difficult to know what happens when poor care is given, or how to deliver better care at home(1).
Our aim is to support safe home-based care through four work packages:
Work Package 1 (review the literature)
Review literature to gain a greater understanding about how safety in home-based care is currently described and achieved.
Work Package 2a (review safety notifications)
Understand home-based care concerns, through safety notifications, by reviewing up to 6000 safety notifications from social care to understand how the system could be improved.
Work Package 2b (professional focus groups and interviews)
Explore what helps or prevents safety among different groups who plan, manage, support and deliver home-based care, such as care professionals, care providers, and social care organisations, through focus groups. We will carry out 6-8 focus group sessions, lasting up to 60 minutes with 5-10 participants in each group: with a minimum of 30 participants, and a maximum of 80, plus an additional 10 key respondent interviews.
Work Package 3 (Interviews with service users and unpaid/carers).
Gather the views and experiences of people receiving care at home, and their family or informal caregivers, to understand their safety concerns by interviewing 60 participants, for up to an hour. This will include approximately 40 people receiving direct home-based care and/or who provide care, and approximately 20 people who previously received home-based care and now live in a residential or care home.
Stakeholder events
We plan to carry out three events with professionals, and people who receive or deliver home-based care, to share what we have learned, and to discuss how to make home-based care safe. We will invite ~18-20 professionals, and ~20 informal carers/relatives/ people receiving home-based care.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
25/WA/0256
Date of REC Opinion
21 Oct 2025
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion