Supporting self-funders to make confident care decisions: ‘Care Confidence in Action’

Research Team

• Kate Gridley, University of York, kate.gridley@york.ac.uk

• Dr Lyndsay Lindley, University of York, lyndsay.lindley@york.ac.uk

• Professor Yvonne Birks, University of York, yvonne.birks@york.ac.uk

• Professor Helen Weatherley, University of York, helen.weatherly@york.ac.uk

Co-Investigators 

• Professor Tracy Finch, Northumbria University, tracy.finch@northumbria.ac.uk

• Gerry Nosowska, Effective Practice, gerry@effective-practice.com

Project Summary

Background: Understanding and arranging social care is not easy. Older people who need to fund their own care (self-funders) say they do not always know where to start or what their options are. Some would like help to make decisions and plan their next steps. At the University of York we have developed a website with and for older self-funders which is evidence-based and contains useful information to help people make a plan. The website is called Care Confidence.

Overall aim: Our aim is to ensure that everyone who could benefit from Care Confidence has the opportunity to do so.

This research project: We are working with local councils and charities to find the best ways of helping older self-funders to use Care Confidence. This might be simply letting people know how to access the care planning tool, or it might involve a face-to-face care-planning session, or a guided conversation when people leave hospital. Services will put their plans into action, and we will evaluate this and feed in learning to help them improve things over time.

Specifically, we will: 

1) Hold workshops: For services to plan how to use Care Confidence and where it fits (using an adapted version of the ItFits Toolkit): 

• • When will they tell people about Care Confidence? 
  • Will they offer some people additional help? (For example, people who are socially isolated, have English as a second language or who struggle with digital technology.) 
  • What will this help look like? 
  • Will they provide ongoing support? 

2) Assist services to put their plans into action: This could involve some staff training, or a change in the way a service is delivered. Additional costs can be covered.

3) Evaluate how things are going: This will include:

• • Interviews, focus groups and a survey with front-line staff and managers
  • Interviews with people using Care Confidence
  • Information from the Care Confidence website

4) Hold follow-up workshops and share the learning: We will discuss what we are learning with stakeholders and agree further improvements. Services will adjust their approaches, more data will be collected by the research team and final workshops will then be held to hear findings and agree next steps.

Working with older people and their supporters: Care Confidence was co-designed with older self-funders and the people who support them. They tested the website as research participants and made design decisions through the project advisory group. This group will continue to contribute actively, ensuring that the proposed implementation study is guided by the expertise of people with lived experience.   

Making an impact: The research will produce new knowledge about how best to support older self-funders. We will work with services, networks of professionals and people with lived experience to ensure key messages reach the right people and the research has maximum impact.

Associated research projects/publications

Care Confidence was developed with social care self-funders, their supporters and other experts through an NIHR SSCR funded project led by Dr Kate Baxter called ‘Development of a decision support tool for older people who pay for social care, and their families’

The need for a care planning tool for social care self-funders was established through earlier NIHR SSCR funded work including ‘The SIgN project - Meeting the information needs of self-funders’ Baxter et al. 

In 2024 a new section of Care Confidence was added using evidence from another SSCR 3 funded study ‘When the money runs out”: capital depletion and transition out of self-funded care’ led by Dr Philip Kinghorn