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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

How we involve and engage patients and the public in our applied health and care research Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Participation (or PPIEP in short) Our vision has been Meaningful public and community involvement and engagement has been a central part of NIHR ARC Wessex’ health and social care research activities. Over the last six and a half years patients and the public have supported our research in many ways. Helping to design research, co-producing research projects and their outputs, being an esstential part of the whole research process from inception to completion. In addition to their contributions during and after the research process, our public contributors have helped act as ambassadors for our work and helped to promote its findings. Below are just some of the images over the years of our contributors. How we met the UK standards for Public and Patient Involvement and Engage Downloadable information Impact report Glossary

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

f06fb2ad-c8c9-436f-982c-c278b7185585 ENRICHER – involvEment iN the cRiminal justice system & the ImpaCt on women’s Health dorsEt & hampshiRe Chief Investigator Professor Julie Parkes Professor in Public Health Head of School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Faculty of Medicine University of Southampton, South Academic Block, Southampton General Hospital, Tremona Road, Dr Emma Plugge Associate Professor in Public Health School of Primary Care, Population Sciences and Medical Education Faculty of Medicine University of Southampton, Co-Investigators Dr Donna Arrondelle , Research Fellow, University of Southampton Dr Naomi Gadian, Public Health Specialist Registrar, University of Southampton Donna Gipson, Director EP:IC Consultants Ltd, West Malling, Kent Dr James Hall , Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Southampton Paula Harriott , Head of Prison Engagement, Prison Reform Trust Professor Kathleen Kendall , Professorial Fellow of Sociology as Applied to Medicine, University of Southampton Dr Sara Morgan , Associate Professor in Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton Professor James Raftery , Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton, Dr Lucy Wainwright , Director of Research, EP:IC Consultants Ltd, West Malling, Kent Starts: 1st April 2023 Ends: 30th September 2024 Summary This study will look at what happens to women’s health and wellbeing when they are imprisoned. The imprisoned women will be women from Dorset and we will compare any changes to changes in women from Hampshire who go to Hope Street instead of going to prison. Hope Street is a charity-funded alternative to prison, available only to women from Hampshire; women live in special accommodation in the community where they are secure and where they are able to access a range of health and social care services. Women who go to prison are often from the poorest communities and they often have many different health problems, particularly relating to their mental health. These health problems are often related to their crimes and so by making sure they get the services they need, this will help their health improve and benefit wider society by helping tackle crime. This study will ensure that this new and unique information is available to those who plan and deliver health services locally. The Southampton research team on this project are carrying out a 5-year evaluation of Hope Street. This means they can use the data that they are collecting as part of this evaluation on the health of women at Hope Street to compare to women from Dorset who are imprisoned. Researchers will collect information on the health and social care needs of the two groups of women at the same time intervals over a one-year period and in the same way. We will then compare this information to look for differences. We will interview the women so that we understand what their experiences are like in prison or Hope Street, and why there might be differences. We will also look at the cost of their care. The information from our study will help the professionals who plan health and social care services and also those who work in criminal justice settings such as prison or probation. Women with experience of imprisonment are part of the eight-person study team. They have helped design the project and will be working with Hope Street women to train them in research. They will also be important in spreading the word about the study. This will enable us to reach not just academic audiences and policy makers through publishing in journals or presenting at research conferences, but also people with lived experience of imprisonment and charities that work in this area. Informing a wide range of people will be important in ensuring that the findings from this study are acted on.

07abb52d-c8db-43f8-85d4-b392467d6ada Developing training for person-centred care: adapting the Chat & Plan for use in domiciliary care Chief Investigator: Dr Teresa Corbett, Visiting Research Fellow, School of Health Sciences , University of Southampton and Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Solent University. Co-Investigators: Professor Jackie Bridges, Professor of Older People's Care, School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton Dr Nicola Andrews, Research Fellow - NIHR ARC Wessex , School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton Cindy Brooks, Research Fellow - NIHR ARC Wessex , School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton Dr Pippa Collins, Advanced Clinical Practitioner, Post Doc Research Fellow – NIHR ARC Wessex, School of Health Sciences, University of Southampton Collaborating organisations: Hampshire County Council – Maria Hayward, Learning & Development Service Manager and Implementation Champion Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council – Alison Pearman, Service Improvement Manager Wessex AHSN – Cheryl Davies, Senior Programme Manager (Healthy Ageing) Skills for Care – Debbie Boys, Locality Manager – Hampshire, Southampton, Portsmouth and Isle of Wight Purple Lilac Healthcare - Violet Chatindo, Registered Manager Right at home – Andrew Davis, Registered Manager Partners in Care – Kate Blake, Manager Start date: 1/6/23 End date: 1/9/24 Aim of the research The aim of this research is to adapt a communication tool for use by social care workers and to find out what type of information we should include in a training package for social care workers providing domiciliary care (e.g., practical help and support in the community) to support its use. This study will help us to make a training course that we can try out with social care workers in future research. Background to the research We made a tool to help healthcare staff to talk to older adults about their needs. This tool has 8 steps that should be followed in a discussion with people about their needs and personal goals. However, the tool might need to be changed if we want to use it in domiciliary or other social care settings instead of healthcare (e.g., the NHS) settings. In this research, we want to see if we need to change the tool so that it can be used by social care workers. We also want to find out about how we might be able to train social care workers to improve how they talk to older adults about their needs. Design and methods used We will study existing courses, workshops and training so that we can find out more about how we should plan our training. We will also interview social care workers to find out more about what they do in their role. We will ask them to tell us what they think of the tool, and what changes we might need to make to it. Up to 15 social care workers will take part. We will make a draft of what will be included in the training. Experts will discuss the training and we will make changes based on what they say. We will interview some more social care workers to find out what they like or do not like about the training plan we have made. Patient, public and community involvement Members of the public have been part of the study so far in many ways. They have helped us to make the tool that we will ask social care workers about. We will also work with experts in social care who have agreed to help us to in a number of ways. These include: · Looking over content and letting us know what they think. · Coming to project meetings. · Helping to plan the study. · Looking over study information that we will send to participants. · Helping us to make sense of the research findings. Dissemination We will share our findings at conferences and at events with audiences who are interested in our study. We will also write about our findings for academic and public audiences via Communications channels (e.g. relevant websites, social media, newsletters). We will also share findings with those working in social care, e.g., via domiciliary care forums (each local authority has one) and with Learning and development teams in local authorities. What did we find out? An adapted version of the CHAT&PLAN is viewed as feasible to use in homecare settings. We needed to change some of the language to make it more relevant to homecare settings and improve clarity. There is an appetite and need for co-designed, evidence-based, person-centred care training in homecare settings. Much of the existing training on this topic is not specific to homecare workers and may not always apply to their role. CHAT&PLAN provides an overview of skills that should be used flexibly, depending on the needs and preferences of the service user. The training will emphasise that it may not work well for all service users, and further communication skills training is required alongside this course. We identified key factors we would need to consider in the development of a training package: 1.Teaching style and methods should be practical to support skills development. Training should involve learning from each other and reflection. 2.The training must be viewed as relevant to the homecare workers and be pitched at a level that is clear and easy to understand. 3.Buy-in from managers, organisations and service users is required for homecare workers to attend sessions, and then apply skills in practice. What did we do with this new knowledge? •Study summary was shared with supporting organisations and participants •Systematic review paper has been submitted to PLOS One Where next? We did not have time in this study to test out the training with homecare workers. This is important as we want to know how the training works in practice. We will need to test the package to see what homecare workers and managers think of the entire set of materials and methods used in the training. We will then apply for funding to see whether the training is acceptable and feasible in practice and improves the quality of person-centred care provided by homecare workers.

d9f3030e-3acc-4dc2-87bc-c01e65471d56 FLEXI: Falls management exercise programme led by NIHR ARC East Midlands working with NIHR ARC Greater Manchester and NIHR ARC South West Peninsula The FLEXI Study (FaLls EXercise Implementation) Lay Summary Falling can cause injury, pain, loss of confidence and independence. This is undesirable for the individual and their families, and places significant demands on health and social care services. Falls are not inevitable. By improving an individual’s strength and balance, alongside skills to help getting up from a fall (should this happen), the likelihood of a fall occurring or having damaging consequences, such as a long lie on the floor, can be minimised. The Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme is a group-based, face-to-face, six-month exercise programme specifically aimed at improving the strength and balance of people aged 65 and over. Research has shown that FaME results in fewer falls, improved confidence, and reduced fear-of-falling. Despite this, FaME is still not available everywhere across England. More needs to be understood about how best to increase its availability and ensure high quality delivery. To improve our understanding of this, we previously studied FaME’s set-up, delivery and quality in the East Midlands. We learnt a lot about how to get FaME running and showed that the programmes worked outside of a research setting. Using learning from the East Midlands, we developed a guide for implementing FaME called the implementation toolkit . This evidence-based toolkit contains all the information needed to set up and run a FaME programme, from making the initial business case to promoting it to participants. “FaME gives value. We know it's great value for money. We know it works in terms of it reduces falls, it increases physical activity, improves function, improves confidence. So many different benefits” What have we discovered? What works to foster (encourage) the adoption (initial decision to choose or take up something) and spread (roll out over a large area) of The Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme ? Using implementation frameworks, we successfully identified key barriers and enablers of adoption, implementation and spread of the Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme across the three localities. We found that the adoption, implementation and spread of FaME into community settings is complex and faces multiple health system challenges. In order for the FaME programme to be chosen as a community fall prevention intervention by commissioners, the programme must be able to demonstrate how successful it is in reducing falls for older adults (this is often determined by internal service evaluation). The programme was also required to fit the needs of those receiving the intervention, for example, FaME was primarily provided where there was a growing, aging population in need of fall prevention interventions. The spread of the FaME programme within organisations and into new regional areas was dependant on the input of commissioners passionate about fall prevention. Commissioners were required to support this roll out and provide funding, whilst also ensuring that there was a sufficient expert instructor workforce available to deliver FaME. The programmes were further required to be monitored regularly to evidence how successfully each programme was in reducing rate and risk of falls for older adults receiving the intervention. This was often the role of the postural stability instructor. Future funding is required to build in paid time for this to ensure that programme outcomes can support future funding cycles as often instructors are funded on an hourly basis. Does FaME work in the real world, how is it adapted (altered or changed), and does it reach the intended audience (older adults at risk of falling)? The collection of routine class data across three regions in England demonstrated that FaME was associated with benefits for participants at 12 and 24 weeks of the programme. Those benefits included improved balance and mobility and reduced falls. Programmes that provided higher ‘dose’ (i.e. ran over 24 weeks rather than 12 weeks) found that older adults experienced greater improvements in balance and mobility and were less likely to be concerned about falling again. What works to maintain the quality (the standard) and fidelity (how well something is reproduced) of the FaME programme over time? One of the key findings of the FLEXI study was that sites demonstrated a lack of clarity of essential components or key ingredients of the FaME intervention. This influenced both implementation and the providers' ability to assess adherence. The need for an understanding of central components was also clear in understanding delivery adherence and, therefore, the ability to evaluate programmes for their effectiveness. At the point of implementation, it became apparent that commissioners and managers are prioritising aspects of the intervention, with these decisions mediated by knowledge (or lack ) of the intervention, economic culture and organisational priorities. Adaptation of Evidence Based Interventions is key to improving their fit in a new context, however, essential components should not be adapted as intervention effectiveness cannot be guaranteed. We have proposed a new framework of implementation fidelity, that shows that mediators were key both in the implementation and delivery of complex interventions, as well as the mediating more of global mediators. Understanding of essential components is paramount at the point of implementation in order to ensure fidelity is implemented, maintained, and assessed. We suggest that complex interventions have a standard of evaluation (based on core components) and insights on fidelity/value negotiations within toolkits. We highlight that local fidelity evaluation is key to standardisation across programmes and delivery. What difference does this knowledge make? We have worked collaboratively with the Health Innovation Networks (HINs), local Integrated Care Systems and Combined Authorities to study ‘spread in action’. As a result, in one of our areas (Devon), where we have applied HINs spread methodology, we have seen a near trebling of available programmes from 13 to 41 (without intervention costs from the study). The study has highlighted the need for an increased frequency of local Quality Assurance to monitor delivery (instructors given the opportunity to observe each other deliver and provide constructive feedback). This has improved the quality of delivery. We have also hosted Greater Manchester-wide collaborative events, which resulted in quality improvement initiatives relating to FaME provision across GM and have established the National FaME Implementation Team (N-FIT) which is now primed and ready to work in new areas to support spread, using the methodologies we have tested. We are refining our implementation toolkit, which is ready to be tested in new areas and we want to refine and improve our quality assurance framework and costing tool using data collected from the study to support future FaME provision. What next? Our future planned work aims to address: Gaps in our understanding about what works to reach underserved communities in relation to FaME participation. We are currently working to explore the provision of FaME in ‘neighbourhood’ areas where there are good examples of reach into underserved groups (e.g. minority ethnic groups, male participants and socioeconomically deprived areas). We are conducting case-study research methodologies to further investigate this aim. The original FLEXI project highlighted that the monitoring and evaluation of programme outcomes are not captured well by local areas delivering programmes. We are, therefore, now developing a more structured evaluation framework for sites to use a legacy of the project. New data on the costs of implementing FaME have been determined and we would love to use these figures to update the national return on investment tool for FaME, developed by Public Health England and York University, to see if this improves the economic case for FaME roll-out. Lastly, we have also tested quality assurance tools for FaME and can see that improvements can be made to increase the tools’ internal and external validity. Moving forward, we would like to refine our preferred tool using academic methods to test this in new areas. FLEXI output links digital .pdf Download PDF • 616KB We would like to thank: Principle Investigator: Dr Elizabeth Orton Team members: Professor Denise Kendrick , Professor Stephen Timmons , Professor Carol Coupland , Professor Pip Logan , Professor Tahir Masud , Professor Vicki Goodwin , Professor Claire Hulme , Professor Chris Todd , Dr Helen Hawley-Hague , Dr Paul Wilson, Professor Dawn Skelton , Mrs Margaret Beetham Study researchers and study staff: Dr Fay Manning Dr Jodi Ventre Dr Aseel Mahmoud Dr Basharat Hussain Dr Michael Taylor Dr Grace Brough Dr Amar Shukla Dr Robert Vickers Ms Tina Patel Study public contributors: Mary Murphy Margaret Beetham PPIE Workshop participants from Greater Manchester, Devon and East Midlands Our Partners: NIHR ARC Greater Manchester , NIHR ARC South West Peninsula , Health Innovation South West , Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, Health Innovation Manchester, Later Life Training, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, Leicester-shire and Rutland Sport. Research sites: Devon Integrated Care System (ICS), Manchester combined authority, Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICS, Derby and Derbyshire ICS Starts: 1/10/2021 Ends: 30/9/2025 Lay summary below Falling can cause injury, pain, loss of confidence and independence. This is undesirable for the individual and their families, and places significant demands on health and social care services. Falls are not inevitable. By improving an individual’s strength and balance, alongside skills to help getting up from a fall (should this happen), the likelihood of a fall occurring or having damaging consequences, such as a long lie on the floor, can be minimised. The Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme is a group-based, face-to-face, six-month exercise programme specifically aimed at improving the strength and balance of people aged 65 and over. Research has shown that FaME results in fewer falls, improved confidence, and reduced fear-of-falling. Despite this, FaME is still not available everywhere across England. More needs to be understood about how best to increase its availability and ensure high quality delivery. To improve our understanding of this, we previously studied FaME’s set-up, delivery and quality in the East Midlands. We learnt a lot about how to get FaME running and showed that the programmes worked outside of a research setting. Using learning from the East Midlands, we developed a guide for implementing FaME called the implementation toolkit . This evidence-based toolkit contains all the information needed to set up and run a FaME programme, from making the initial business case to promoting it to participants. We now want to use this toolkit to see if FaME can be made more available in two new, and very different, regions: Greater Manchester and Devon, and assess whether FaME works in these populations too, particularly if adaptations are made because of Coronavirus. We aim to: 1) Understand how best to increase availability of FaME in two new areas and assess the role that the toolkit plays in this. Using the toolkit we will work with local experts to promote FaME to organisations that decide what health services should be funded locally. 2) Study the delivery of FaME in the new areas and see if programmes work in these populations by measuring improvements in participating individuals. 3) Test ways of maintaining the quality of FaME programmes over time. Working with Later Life Training, a national not-for-profit organisation with expertise in FaME, we will measure the quality of programmes and test what works to make them better. We will use this information to improve the implementation toolkit and develop plans to support national implementation of FaME. Publications Factors influencing fall prevention programmes across three regions of the UK: the challenge of implementing and spreading the Falls Management Exercise (FaME) programme in a complex landscape | Age and Ageing | Oxford Academic https://vimeo.com/616877571

98ea6e39-72b8-439c-baa8-0843050c271b ADOPTED: SPLENDID Social Prescribing for people to Live ENjoyably with Dementia/memory problems In Daily life Research lead: Professor George Christopher Fox, University of East Anglia ARC Wessex team: Dr Euan Sadler, University of Southampton, Dr Katherine Bradbury, University of Southampton. Partner organisations: NHS Norfolk and Waveney CCG, University of Hull, University of Nottingham, University of Exeter, King's College London, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Meaningful Measures Ltd. Start: 01/05/2022 End: 30/04/2027 What is the problem? Nearly one million people in the UK will be living with the affects of dementia by 2030 including poor well-being and quality of life. Social prescribing is a prescription of activities for a person to use to link with others and undertake something they might enjoy, this could be a walking or singing group, flower arranging class, visit to a museum or putting them in touch with other people to help them feel better. People meet with staff called Link- Workers, who have a conversation with them to help them think about what they enjoy and might help. The Link Worker might then introduce them to a group or activity or support them to find information to make links. Family members can be involved too. Research shows social prescribing has better effects than just taking medicine and is happening more often. This study (called SPLENDID) aims to understand how we ensure social prescribing is useful and helpful to people with dementia. What we will do SPLENDID researchers will talk with people with dementia, family carers and staff working in social prescribing to understand what people want, what works well and what could be improved. We will use this to design, with people with dementia, what looks like the best way for social prescribing with people with dementia. We will create some tools (online and face-to-face) to help workers and people with dementia talk and think together about what might help them. We will test it with a small group of people to see if it helps and look at what training Link- Workers need to offer the best support for people with dementia and their families. We then decide if this should be taken forward and tested in a larger study to see if it improves peoples’ well-being and is value for money. Working with patients and carers Our team met 8 people with dementia and 8 family carers to design this study. We have 2 co-researchers (Mr Rook and Mrs Bingham) who are living with dementia. 150 people with dementia were surveyed to see what social prescribing is currently being offered and found people were doing a range of outdoor and indoor activities, some with family which they enjoyed and found helpful. People with dementia and carers will be on our Committees, and several dementia charities support this work. Dissemination Our website will offer free resources put together with people with dementia and carers. Our findings will be shared locally and nationally using links we have with universities, clinical experts, press, social media, workshops with people who commission and provide. NIHR ARC East of England study site Publications Social prescribing for people living with dementia (PLWD) and their carers: what works, for whom, under what circumstances and why – protocol for a complex intervention systematic review | BMJ Open

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< Back Brad Grecco Marketing Associate This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Want to view and manage all your collections? Click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. Here, you can make changes to your content, add new fields, create dynamic pages and more. Your collection is already set up for you with fields and content. Add your own content or import it from a CSV file. Add fields for any type of content you want to display, such as rich text, images, and videos. Be sure to click Sync after making changes in a collection, so visitors can see your newest content on your live site. info@mysite.com 123-456-7890

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