Improving Evidence Sharing in the Health and Social Care for Older People through an Evaluated Practitioner Research Programme

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As western societies experience an aging population, improving, or even maintaining, the quality of health and social care of older people is a significant issue. Reflecting wider trends, in Scotland by 2031 the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to be 58% higher than in 2004. This represents a significant challenge to health and social care services, as well as to individuals providing care to relatives or friends. This project is based on the premise that in order to tackle this issue there is a need for a stronger evidence base related to older people that those designing, providing or receiving care can draw on. There is also a need for better sharing of this evidence base and greater use of this evidence across policy, practice, provider and research groups to improve the lives of older people. This project brings together a team of academics, policy-makers, practitioners, older people accessing health and social care provision, and specialists in evidence-use in practice and knowledge media. Together we will draw together existing evidence and generate new knowledge and understanding about improving health and social care for older people, and embed the use of this evidence to then improve the lives of older people across Scotland. The project involves 4 core components:1) Synthesising the evidence about improving research use by and usefulness of research for those involved in receiving or delivering care, specifically examining the role practitioner research can play and building on lessons from earlier projects on which this work will build2) Exploring the research priorities of the project partners in developing and sharing research evidence on the health and social care of older people; this will help the practitioner researchers to frame their small scale research projectsProject partners will be NHS Lothian, Scottish Care, Alzheimer Scotland. Glasgow City Council, and West Lothian Local Authority. These organisations will release up to 3 members of staff each in order to participate in the Practitioner Research Programme (PRP). They will also have a representative on the Project Steering group.The Scottish Government and the Joint Improvement team will also be represented on the Steering Group as a reflection of their committment to this project.3) Delivery of a Practitioner Research Programme (PRP) to support the development of small-scale research projects led by those delivering care for older people and involving older people receiving care, academic researchers and knowledge brokers in the co-production and translation of this research. Delivery will include supporting networking, knowledge exchange and sharing between those undertaking the research projects, and the promotion and dissemination of this research to national and international audiences. 4) Sharing existing and emerging evidence about how to support and embed practitioner research activities, and methods of improving engagement and collaboration between researchers and those involved in delivering services for those who require supportThe project has 5 partners (NHS Lothian, Scottish Care, West Lothian Council, Glasgow City Council and Alzheimer Scotland) who will release staff to take part in the practitioner research programme (PRP) as practitioner researchers. The partners and the practitioners will benefit from improvements in their understanding of the health and social care for older people, and potentially improvements to the care they provide based on this improved understanding.Further impact is expected through the widespread dissemination of learning from the research projects and from the impact evaluation of the process of holding a PRP and the knowledge translation, exchange and utilisation. These benefits will be for academic, practitioner, policymaker and service user audiences.