5th April 2024
“How ENRICH Cymru brought my social care research idea to life”
Professor Andrew Carson-Stevens is an internationally renowned researcher in the field of patient safety and healthcare quality measurement and has worked extensively with the World Health Organization to progress the safety agenda in primary care.
After personal experiences of the home-based care system, he wanted to turn his attention to exploring the safety of care experienced by those receiving care at home in the community across Wales.
He said, “I’d spent well over a decade gaining experience investigating harm in healthcare but when I had a social care research idea, it felt like I was starting from scratch. From knowing who’s who to which key networks or stakeholders I could involve early to develop and test my ideas with.”
After an introduction from colleagues at PRIME Centre Wales, he was connected to ENRICH Cymru which played an integral role into developing his ideas into a funding bid.
ENabling Research In Care Homes (ENRICH Cymru) is a pan-Wales research network of care homes which supports the delivery and facilitation of high-quality research across the country tackling current issues in the care home sector.
Professor Carson-Stevens said: “I found ENRICH Cymru whilst I was conceptualising my research ideas.”
“The value of knowledge from the team, and the connections and relationships I’ve developed as a result allowed me to check the feasibility of my research ideas early on.”
Hosted by Health and Care Research Wales Support and Delivery Centre and the Centre for Ageing and Dementia Research, working across Swansea and Bangor University, the network promotes the exchange of ideas and knowledge, and fosters the co-creation of research – bringing together care home staff, residents and families with researchers like Andrew.
He continued:
Working with ENRICH Cymru allowed me to feel confident in the choices my team made about our research approaches, and especially how I will recruit participants. They worked with me to understand the context of the care home sector, important policy and research to-date in the field. They truly were a catalyst in my bid development.”
“I gained the assurance I needed at critical times to nurture my idea to life.”
Dr Deborah Morgan, Enrich Cymru Research Manager said: “This is another way in which ENRICH Cymru can support life-changing social care research.
“Not only do we connect researchers with care homes, residents and their families; we champion Welsh researchers to hopefully improve the care sector in Wales and across the UK. We reviewed his bid documents, made connections with senior care home professionals and provided advice and guidance on research methods that we know would work.”
“Andrew is a highly skilled award-winning researcher, but he needed our specific knowledge to help with his bid development. We really enjoyed working with Andrew and seeing his passion, we’re looking forward to following his social care research journey.”