Researchers’ Engagement with Care Homes

At Nightingale Hammerson, we have been working with multiple researchers over the past few years. Researchers are our ‘critical friends’. They see what we do, how we do it, and ask us why we do what we do. This offers a great opportunity to reflect on our day to day practice and challenge ourselves to always strive to improve and offer better care to our community.

Over the past year, we have engaged with 14 different studies and researchers on topics like palliative care, human rights, respiratory infections, covid-19 response, dementia, and oral care. Care Homes are a gold mine for researchers. The diversity of topics that require research is very high, and the social care sector really needs researchers to invest more time within the sector in order to help us to challenge the status quo and shape government policy to provide the right level of support to our communities in the coming decades.

Traditionally, researchers approach care providers with the topics they are interested in. But in a lot of occasions these do not reflect the priorities of the care providers. Obviously, that does not help with the engagement with care homes. We want to change the way research has happened. This is one of the reasons why, for two consecutive years, we have organised a Care Home Research Forum at Hammerson House – with the 3^rd one is booked for the 29^th November 2023. At these events, we invite researchers to share the findings of their studies to an audience of researchers, care home staff, CQC inspectors, local authorities, care home residents and their relatives. This is a very broad group of attendees that generate very interesting discussions after each presentation. This is the seed Nightingale Hammerson has planted to help bring change to social care research.

I would like to conclude by doing an appeal: ‘Researchers! We need you!’ If you want to have an impact on people’s lives through research, do social care research on things that are important to the care home residents, relatives and staff. This can help to shape the future of social care and help people to live better in care homes.

By Nuno Santos Lopes

Director of Care, Nightingale Hammerson (www.nightingalehammerson.org)

April 2023