Moves between care settings or services like home care, care homes or extra care housing are challenging for older people and the family and friends who support them.
Working closely with experts by lived experience, a team of academic and practitioner researchers from the Centre for Health Service Studies, and the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent, together with East Sussex County Council and the University College London, embarked on a research project to understand and find out about older people's experiences when transitioning between different care settings.
This project was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research School for Social Care Research (NIHR SSCR) with support from the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) and NIHR ARC North Thames.
The project team:
- Reviewed what older people's key unmet needs are and the approaches used by social care professionals in supporting the care moves
- Interviewed social care practitioners, older people and carers with experience of care moves (or supporting moves) between social care settings/ services or from hospital to social care settings.
- Co-produced move-related resources for social care staff, manager and others, to inform and support older people's moves.
All resources are grounded in research evidence and real-life experience around care moves and how to improve practice.
Access the free online resources.
Read Dr Wenjing Zhang, Research Fellow, Centre for Health Service Studies, University of Kent's, blog on the project's findings.
