Vision Rehab Services: investigating the impacts of two service models
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Vision Rehabilitation Services: Investigating the impacts of two service models
IRAS ID
189963
Contact name
Parvaneh Rabiee
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of York
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 3 months, days
Research summary
Sight loss affects every aspect of a person’s life and it is more common among older people. Demographic trends suggest that the number of older people in England is set to rise significantly. This means greater pressure on health and social care services. Rehabilitation services are seen as a way of reducing demands on health and social care services. A recent Act of Parliament (the Care Act 2014) has made it a requirement for local authorities to take steps to help all people to live independently before people reach a crisis point.
Research shows that community-based vision rehabilitation (VR) services have the potential to enhance quality of life and may help contain costs. However, it is unclear how much such services are able to improve outcomes for people with sight loss and whether they are good value for money. We want to find out whether the type of service model affects outcomes for those who use them and at what cost.
Research shows that there are currently two main models of VR services that are funded by local authorities in England: In-house and ‘contracted-out’. We will evaluate these two models by collecting data from people using 20 VR services (ten in-house and ten contracted-out). Data will be collected about health-related quality of life, well-being and independence of people when they first use the service, four weeks and eight weeks after they start using the service, and six months later. We will also collect information about other services they have used. We will then interview service users, frontline staff and managers of VR services to understand how and why services influence outcomes for people. We will use this information to explore which model is working best for which groups of users and at what cost.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
15/IEC08/0066
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jan 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion