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ARC Wessex is part of the National Institute for Health and Care Research. We conduct research together with universities, health and care services, the NHS, charities, people and patients to improve the lives of people in our community. ARC Wessex 2019-2016 Two ARC leaders appointed Senior Investigators Helping older people get the right medicine Future researchers mark milestone Celebrating the impact of Dementia Fellowships - DEM-COMM Moving Beyond 12 Hour Shifts: How Evidence is Powering Change Have you forgotten me - bridging the gap with dementia diagnosis Read more NIHR ARC Wessex in numbers 200+ Members 100+ Academy members £18M Invested in research 155 Research projects

We are building a new website over the next few months.. so keep an eye out for changes ARC Wessex 2026-2031 This National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration works across the Wessex region in the South of England. It is funded to work from April 2026 until April 2031, and will cover Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight, as well as Wiltshire. The NIHR ARC Wessex is led by Professors Catherine Bowen and Michael Boniface both based at the Univerisity of Southampton. The organisation is part of a network of 11 Applied Research Collaborations that cover England, and we work closely with University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. We are a genuine collaboration of Universities, NHS Trusts, Local Councils, the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise organisations, and Industry partners. We work together to address real-world health and care challenges across the region and nationally through high-quality applied research. Our work leads to evidence that informs practice, improves patient care, and shapes policy. We work together with public contributors and our communities in everything we do. Read our New ARC Wessex Summary Our mission NIHR is committed to funding health, public health and social care research that leads to improved outcomes for patients and the public, and makes the health and social care system more efficient, effective and safe. We work closely with stakeholders across the system to ensure we address the challenges they face and are responsive to their research needs. National Institute for Health and Care Research Our mission Our collaboration Our collaboration Each NIHR ARC is made up of local providers of NHS services, local providers of care services, NHS commissioners, local authorities, universities, private companies and charities. These collaborations work together to conduct high quality, generalisable, applied health and care research that addresses the specific health or care issues in their region. NIHR ARCs act to increase the rate at which research findings are implemented into practice. The 11 ARCs work collaboratively to address national research priorities, with individual ARCs providing national leadership in their areas of expertise. Prior to April 2026 NIHR ARC Wessex ran from October 2019 until March 2026 - Link to this ARC Website From April 2014 until October 2019 the organisation was called NIHR CLAHRC Wessex. Contact Southampton Science Park, Innovation Centre, 2 Venture Road, Chilworth, Southampton SO16 7NP 023 8059 7983 arcwessex@soton.ac.uk First Name Last Name Email Message Thanks for getting in touch Send

If you are a researcher looking for poster or presentation templates, logos, advice and tips then this is the page for you Reports, toolkits and support Need help with publication wording? Read more Need an ARC Wessex logo? ARC LOGO SQUARE for DARK BACKGROUND DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO SQUARE NAVY DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO WHITE DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO SQUARE BLACK DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO for dark background DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO NAVY DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO SQUARE WHITE DOWNLOAD ARC LOGO BLACK DOWNLOAD Powerpoint Arial font Button Powerpoint Inclusive font Button Policy Briefs Medicine Optimisation and Deprescribing in Older People Strengthening Community Based Falls Prevention in England ARC Wessex Public Policy Fellowship Report - Public Policy Fellows M Myall & E Radcliffe Toolkits Domestic Abuse and Life Limiting Illness - DALLI toolkit Wessex Implementation Toolkit evidence brief Evidence briefs Evidence-briefs: short summaries and overviews of research addressing the key questions in Workforce and Health Systems December 2025 - Negotiating competing priorities in nurse shift scheduling Globally, healthcare systems are losing nursing staff due to a poor work-life balance, among other job factors. Shift scheduling is a point of potential and actual conflict between organisations and nursing staff because of their differing priorities. Through interviews with nursing staff and managers, this evidence brief reports the findings of a qualitative study that reveals that collaborative and compromising approaches are the most effective ways to prevent conflicts from escalating. By reasonably meeting nurses’ preferences through these approaches, organisations can support both individual well-being and organisational goals. Conversely, rigid policies and competing approaches often lead to conflict, low morale and turnover. May 2025 - Is the quality of maternity care related to the number of midwives and their workload? Maternity staffing is variable from day to day and between organisations; there are also fluctuations in the demand for care. This evidence brief outlines the quantitative evidence on the relationship between staffing levels and the quality of maternity care, including four new studies based on existing NHS data in England. Maternity services need to provide safe, effective and person-centred care for women and families. When staffing is below expected or workload is high, it is important to understand the consequences across a wide range of patient outcomes. Download the full report here (https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/502834/2/25_04_Midwife_staffing_and_care_quality_Eprints_18_9_25.pdf) March 2025 - What is the evidence to support the use of Birthrate Plus® to guide safe staffing in maternity services? The Ockenden review of maternity services at the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust highlighted the urgent need to ensure adequate staffing levels in maternity care and called for a review of the feasibility and accuracy of the Birthrate Plus tool and associated methodologies. Birthrate Plus® is a system that is used to guide workforce planning for midwifery, informing decisions about the number of midwives to employ in order to maintain safe and high quality care (establishment setting). In this review we consider the available evidence to support the use of Birthrate Plus based on a recently published systematic scoping review. Read February 2025 | eHealth literacy and the use of NHS111 online. What does it mean for accessing and using urgent care? Many health care systems, including the NHS, use online services to support the delivery of care, a trend which was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients are increasingly encouraged to access and use online health services such as the NHS 111 online urgent care service, which assesses, triages and signposts users to other health services where necessary. Services like NHS 111 online require people to have sufficient motivation, knowledge of health and of services, and to be able to use digital technologies (‘eHealth literacy’). Whilst digital technologies may seem almost ubiquitous in many aspects of daily life, it is estimated that many millions in the UK do not go online or lack the skills to use the Internet effectively. The push towards accessing care online may exacerbate health inequalities due to variations in peoples’ level of eHealth literacy. However, the relationship between eHealth literacy and the use of urgent online services such as NHS 111 online is not clear. This Evidence Brief describes the findings of a two-year study undertaken by the University of Oxford and the University of Southampton. It summarises the findings of a survey that measured eHealth literacy and preferences of users and non-users of NHS 111 online. July 2024 - What do we know about frailty in the adult population in England? Frailty is an aging-related syndrome of physiological decline, which results in reduced ability of a person to recover from minor health problems. It is common in older adults and increases the likelihood of hospital admissions and a move to residential care. Services supporting older patients with moderate or severe frailty have been developed across the healthcare sector. However, there is a lack of research describing how frailty evolves within the whole adult population and its impact on health services. In 2017, NHS England introduced routine frailty identification for patients aged 65 and over in General Practice, using tools such as electronic Frailty Index (eFI). As well as improving patient care, use of the eFI enables large-scale population studies to explore the epidemiology of frailty and inform future health service provision. This Evidence Brief describes the results of research that analysed a large primary care dataset of adults in England to understand how common frailty is in adults aged 50 and older, how quickly it progresses and the consequent impact on the use of health services. March 2024 - Is it cost-effective to deploy more nurses on hospital wards? Currently the National Health Service (NHS), in common with many health systems around the world, faces shortages of registered nurses. Common sense and a huge body of evidence suggest this is far from ideal to deliver high-quality patient care. In acute general hospitals, when there are fewer registered nurses, more patient care is missed, quality is reduced and patient outcomes are worse. But fixing the problem is likely to be expensive and it is important to ask if this is the best way to spend money in a resource-limited system. Are there alternatives to using registered nurses? In this Evidence Brief, we summarise a recent systematic review answering whether investing in registered nurses represents value for money, and considers whether using support staff with lower qualification levels might provide a more cost-effective solution to nurse shortages. November 2023: Introducing the Professional Judgement Framework to guide nurse staffing decisions Working out how many nursing staff are needed to provide safe care on a hospital ward is complicated, as many factors affect the amount of work. Many tools are available to help estimate the work and the staff needed, but no single tool captures everything, meaning that using professional judgement remains important. Nonetheless, numbers of nursing staff generated by tools may be trusted more than decisions based on professional judgement, which can be seen as too subjective. Providing a framework to help guide new managers in using professional judgement and to help experienced managers justify their thinking may help overcome this challenge. This Evidence Brief describes the development of a Professional Judgement Framework to guide nurse staffing decisions, based on our safe staffing research and nurse workforce expert guidance. September 2022 - How do long shifts, overtime, and higher patient load influence activities that support good nursing practice? How do long shifts, overtime, and higher patient load influence activities that support good nursing practice? Nursing workforce factors like shift length, workload, and use of overtime are known to influence care quality and staff wellbeing. But to what extent do these factors influence other aspects of nursing work - such as care coordination and continuous professional development? We used data from a large national survey of nurses to see if working long shifts, overtime, and having higher patient loads influenced nurses’ opportunities for completing activities that support good practice. Read evidence brief May 2022 - What makes it difficult for patients to ask for help in hospital? What makes it difficult for patients to ask for help in hospital? Failures in fundamental care of hospital patients can have serious consequences, including patients dying unnecessarily. NHS policy and nursing theory emphasise shared decision making by staff and patients. However they do not consider what prevents nurses providing care as they would wish, nor the difficulties patients can face in alerting staff to missed care. Researchers from the University of Southampton interviewed 20 patients and six focus group members about their experiences of involvement in fundamental care decisions in hospitals, including whether they raised missed care with staff and if not, why not. This evidence brief presents our findings, taken from our recent paper. Download evidence brief March 2022 - Are poor experiences on postnatal wards linked to staffing levels? Are poor experiences on postnatal wards linked to staffing levels? Experts are growing increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the midwifery workforce, with unfilled vacancies in the thousands, an ageing workforce with many taking early retirement, and difficulty retaining newly qualified midwives. Staffing studies have focussed on the quality of care in labour, with fewer studies looking at staffing levels in relation to postnatal care. This Evidence Brief describes a cross-sectional analysis of women’s responses to the Maternity Survey 2018 linked to midwifery staffing levels in each Trust. Researchers at the University of Southampton aimed to understand whether the experience of care on postnatal wards varies according to the number of midwives available. They have focused on experiences of postnatal care while in hospital, as this is an area where families have expressed dissatisfaction. Download evidence brief August 2021 - How long do nurses take to measure patients’ vital signs, and does it matter? How long do nurses take to measure patients’ vital signs, and does it matter? Patients in hospital may be at risk of unexpected deterioration. Monitoring patients’ vital signs, for example blood pressure and heart rate, ensures that any deterioration can be spotted early. This means that monitoring patients’ vital signs is an important part of safe patient care, and, if carried out effectively, has the potential to save many patients’ lives. However, previous studies have been unable to specify the workload this monitoring activity generates for nursing staff. This makes it difficult to plan how many staff are needed to monitor patients. Researchers at the University Of Southampton, University of Portsmouth and University of Oxford have teamed up to measure and estimate the time and workload associated with measuring patients’ vital signs, and this evidence brief reports what they found. Download evidence brief June 2021 - What keep nurses nursing? What keeps nurses in nursing? There is a shortage of registered nurses across the world, including in the UK. As demand for care increases, we need to find ways of recruiting more nurses and retaining those already in the workforce. But what makes some nurses decide to leave their jobs, or the profession altogether, and others stay? Understanding workplace factors that influence these decisions could help employers and policymakers to create the conditions needed to keep nurses in the profession. In this Evidence Brief, we bring together the key findings from a scoping review of reports and research papers to summarise what is known about factors that influence nurse retention, and consider what more needs to be done to develop effective retention strategies. Download evidence brief May 2021 - What is the relationship between midwifery staffing levels and outcomes? Staffing levels have been implicated in cases of adverse maternity events, near misses and sub-optimal outcomes such as unwell new-borns or still births. Care that is missed due to high workload can affect the detection of deterioration in mothers and babies, and delay appropriate management. A national shortage of midwives has resulted in increased reliance on support workers but the possible effect of skill-mix changes on outcomes has not been assessed. This Evidence Brief describes a systematic scoping review to explore evidence on the association between inpatient midwifery staffing levels, skill mix and outcomes for mothers and babies. Researchers at the University of Southampton aimed to understand the amount and strength of the available evidence, the direction of relationships established, and to highlight gaps for future research. Download evidence brief March 2021 - Are nurses wasting their time on the road? Automated planning using Operational Research methods can save both planning and travelling time. Researchers at the Universities of Southampton and Exeter are working to close the gap between these methods and the practicalities of home care planning. This Evidence Brief draws attention to the difficulty of finding the best route and schedule. Download evidence brief October 2020 - Burnout in Nursing: what have we learnt and what do we still need to know? Burnout in Nursing: what have we learnt and what do we still need to know? Recent health workforce crises, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have meant that burnout has often become a ‘buzzword’ to represent stress, extreme tiredness, and a willingness to quit one’s job. Several studies in nursing focus on burnout as an indicator of adverse work environments or staff characteristics. Nonetheless, what burnout is - what aspects contribute to its development and what the effect is for nurses, healthcare organisations, or their patients - is often overlooked. This evidence brief describes a review, undertaken by researchers at the University of Southampton, of the research examining relationships between burnout and work-related variables. We sought to determine what is known (and not known) about the causes and consequences of burnout in nursing, and whether these relationships confirm or dispute Maslach’s theory of burnout. Download evidence brief September 2020 - What do we know about the Safer Nursing Care Tool? Many studies of registered nurse staffing in hospitals have shown an association between higher levels and better patient outcomes and care quality. Systems for determining the number of nursing staff needed on wards exist in abundance. However, research Download evidence brief August 2020 - Making sense of urgent care: how and why do people use health services? Urgent care typically describes healthcare for non-life threatening conditions requiring prompt attention (‘same day’ or within 24 hours). In England, urgent care services have proliferated partly to divert people from attending overcrowded emergency departments but also to address policy concerns of patient choice and improved access to care. Download evidence brief July 2020 - Magnet Hospitals – are they better places for staff? Job-related stress and burnout are prevalent amongst healthcare staff; in particular, nurses in the UK have one of the highest levels of burnout in any country in Europe. Tackling this problem is a high priority in the UK and in other countries where shortages of healthcare professionals are affecting healthcare delivery. ‘Magnet’ hospitals are reputed to attract and retain staff, and to achieve better outcomes for patients. But what do we know about whether Magnet hospitals are ‘better’ places for staff to work, and whether they improve staff wellbeing? Download evidence brief February 2020 - What difference have safe staffing policies made to hospitals in the NHS? The Francis inquiries in 2010 and 2013 highlighted nurse staffing as a patient safety factor contributing to the care failings identified at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust. The reports and government response led to the development of national ‘safe staffing’ policy. Download evidence brief

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Healthier Southampton Many of the things that affect our health also affect the environment. For example, the foods that we eat and whether we walk or drive. Some of these things also affect whether we can access good quality, nutritional food- for example, what lunches are provided by schools or colleges, and whether people can get a local allotment. It can be useful to see weight, food, and the environment as part of a complex system, a web of things that all influence each other. We are running a research exercise with local community members in Southampton on the 26th November, and we’ll share the results of that meeting here. We will run some more community gatherings on 3rd December 2025 where we will talk through the results of our research exercise and take part in a series of activities in small groups designed to explore the Southampton system in more detail. If you have any questions or comments about this research, please email j.l.barker@soton.ac.uk .

Mapping pathways of response for adult & child victim-survivors of domestic abuse in Southampton City Have you been affected by domestic abuse? Do you live in Southampton? Hide this page in an emergency Jump to tips on safe web browsing A team of researchers from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton are doing an evaluation to learn more about how individuals and families are referred to Southampton City Council for support with a domestic abuse situation. We want to learn more about the experiences of those individuals and families, after they are referred for support. The goal is to help the Council improve the services they can offer, for people who are experiencing domestic abuse. You can take part in this evaluation by having an ‘interview’ – a discussion with a researcher. This would be completely confidential and would take about an hour. Would you like to share your experience? We would be very interested to hear from you. If you have any questions, or if you would like to take part in this evaluation, please contact: Katerina Porter at 02380 594 644 or k.a.porter@soton.ac.uk or Eunice Aroyewun at 02380 594 554 or e.o.aroyewun@soton.ac.uk . Please watch this video to learn more. SAFE BROWSING TIPS Domestic abuse is not just violence and often includes controlling behaviour. If you are scared your partner will find out you’ve been here, here’s how you cover your tracks. How do I turn on private browsing on Google Chrome (incognito window)? Start Chrome and click the three dot icon in the top right corner of the screen. Click New Incognito Window and start browsing. You can press Ctrl + Shift + N to bring up a new incognito window without entering the Chrome settings menu. Before opening the browser, you can right click the Chrome icon, then select New Incognito window How do I enable InPrivate browsing in Microsoft Edge? Open Microsoft Edge, and click on the three Dots at the top right corner of the browser Window. Now click on New InPrivate window. You can press Ctrl + Shift + P to bring up a new InPrivate window without entering the settings menu. Before opening the browser, you can right click the Edge icon, then select New InPrivate window How do I enable InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer? Open Internet Explorer, and click on the Tools icon at the top right corner of the browser Window. Now click on Safety then InPrivate Browsing. You can press Ctrl + Shift + P to bring up a new InPrivate window without entering the settings menu. Before opening the browser, you can right click the Edge icon, then select New InPrivate window How do I turn on private browsing in Mozilla Firefox? Click or tap the Open menu button in the top right side of the browser window. It has the shape of three parallel lines. Then, choose New Private Window. You can press Ctrl + Shift + P to bring up a New Private Window without entering the settings menu. How do I turn on private browsing in Safari on an iPhone? Tap to open Safari, then tap the 2 overlaid squares in the bottom right corner, then tap Private to enable Private Browsing Mode and finally tap Done and start browsing. When finished be sure to tap the 2 overlaid squares again and then tap x on each page to clear the pages before finally tapping Private to go back to normal. How do I turn on private browsing on an Android phone? Tap to open Internet, then tap tabs in the bottom right corner, then tap Turn On Secret Mode and start browsing. When finished be sure to tap x on each page to clear the pages before finally tapping Turn Off Secret Mode to go back to normal. Information from STOP DOMESTIC ABUSE - https://stopdomesticabuse.uk/cover-your-tracks

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