Communicating consensus to inform care home policy

Always happy to put my journalist hat back on, I recently attended an event at London’s Goldsmiths Centre that discussed ideas and best practice around how we should better use data to improve adult social care.

I was there on behalf of the organiser, the British Geriatrics Society (BGS). They were bringing together health and social care practitioners, academics, system leaders and policymakers to dig into the detail of a wicked policy problem: how do we create a national, systematic and cross-sector approach for how data is captured, shared and used to optimise care and quality of life in care homes.

We heard presentations of the latest research evidence from studies led by University College London (UCL) and University of Hertfordshire (UH). UCL’s VIVALDI study demonstrated how wider availability and better use of data saved lives in care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The UH-led DACHA study detailed its progress in developing and testing an agreed minimum dataset to address a persistent gap: the absence of aggregated, accessible and standardised data on people living in care homes. We were introduced to an international perspective too, hearing how minimum datasets had been adopted in Canada and other countries.

My role in all of this? To identify consensus among a broad group of stakeholders with diverse views and motivations around how a national minimum dataset for care homes should be adopted in practice. And to report on the ‘state of the art’ in minimum datasets and the barriers to, and opportunities for, collecting standardised care data, based on findings from national and international studies. The challenge was to translate research evidence, round-table sessions and Q&A discussions into a set of policy recommendations that could form the backbone of a BGS position statement on the issue.

Our resulting report Smarter data, better care: Empowering care homes to use data to transform quality of care, produced with the BGS team, positions BGS as leading the conversation on behalf of the health and social care sectors. Its main aim is to ensure that any agreed dataset is meaningful and useful for people living in care homes and those caring for them. In other words, a data resource that is of genuine benefit to all, not just a regulatory and cost-efficiency tool.

There is a lesson here for the research community: think like a think tank or a membership organisation like BGS and make sure you get the maximum impact out of your stakeholder engagement events. They are an ideal opportunity to develop an evidence-based consensus around a policy issue and to continue the conversation long after the event. A balanced yet decisive position statement, underpinned by the latest research and accompanied by a carefully thought through communications and engagement plan, can allow researchers to help lead this conversation.

Please feel free to get in touch if you need this kind of support.