Launch of the next phase of Care Confidence research: Care Confidence in Action!
York races were on and the city was in glamorous mode when we met to launch Care Confidence in Action, the implementation phase of NIHR School for Social Care Research funded research to deliver Care Confidence to older social care self-funders.
Service managers and commissioners from the York, Hull and North Yorkshire councils, and from the charity Dementia Forward, all came together on Friday 16th May to celebrate the availability of Care Confidence and to plan how to best use it in each local area.
Care Confidence is a free, independent decision support aid for people planning and paying for social care in later life. The launch event was an opportunity for key stakeholders in the social care system to think about how this could be integrated into their service pathways to help self-funders get the most from this online tool. We looked at scenarios where Care Confidence could be used to:
- Think about the future and support preventative work
- Talk someone through the complex social care system in a simple, step-by-step way
- Help someone through a major life change such as moving to an accessible home
The discussion was vibrant from the start, but the message from service providers was clear:
‘There isn’t a lot of support for self-funders. Care Confidence can help us to have stronger conversations about planning ahead.’
Next steps:
Teams from three local authorities and a specialist dementia charity are working as partners in the next phase of the research to design and implement ways to get Care Confidence to people who need it, overcoming barriers and building it into their local services. The research team will collect data about this process and feed in the findings in real time, so that teams can learn from this and optimise their approach.
Research that supports implementation
Informed by implementation science (specifically the ItFits approach pioneered by a co-applicant on the project Tracy Finch) each site will be supported by the research team to plan their tailored implementation of Care Confidence. They will develop ways use Care Confidence to help people overcome barriers like digital exclusion, language barriers and the uncertainty many people say they feel towards planning care.
They’ll each take a different course, focussing on the touchpoints in their local area where conversations can happen using Care Confidence. This might be an initial call, a trusted service or a formal assessment.
Each team talked inspiringly about why they want to be involved from the desire to ‘build compassionate practice’ to ensuring that people ‘get the best support they can and can make decisions about what that looks like.' But all agreed that the overall goals were to ensure that people feel in control get the right support and have better outcomes.
Teams will be meeting twice more in the summer to agree their approach, and then get to work!
For more information or to get involved, contact Lyndsay.lindley@york.ac.uk or watch this space.