Karen Gray, Ailsa Cameron, Christie Cabral, Geraldine Macdonald and Linda Sumpter
This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Shooting in the dark’: implications of the research–practice gap for enhancing research use in adult social care’.
There is great potential for research to inform adult social care practice. However, a gap remains between this potential and its actual use by those who plan, commission or deliver care. In our recently published paper in Evidence & Policy we consider this gap. We also reflect on the implications of the continuing need to ensure that research is there – relevant, accessible, usable and used.
In 2022 we interviewed people in three local authorities. When asked what they thought research was for, most emphasised the belief that it should improve the lives of people using services. Some mentioned improving their own practice. Others talked about its value in helping them ‘fight their corner’ when a difficult decision had to be made or course of action justified.
Senior leaders noted its potential for informing strategic direction, but sometimes sounded a note of caution by talking about the realities of decision-making on the ground. Strikingly, one talked about how a failure to access or use timely, relevant research might leave them ‘shooting in the dark’ on important decisions. Several participants told us that, given the pressures they faced day to day, time spent thinking about research was ‘an absolute luxury’.
We are applying the implications of this in the ConnectED (Connecting Evidence to Decision-Making) project. These implications also have relevance wherever adult social care organisations and research institutions are looking to close the research-practice gap.
ConnectED is one of six NIHR-funded projects addressing this issue. It aims to facilitate evidence-based decision-making in adult social care through supporting, promoting and encouraging routine use of research. We have established Research Practice Partnerships in four partner agencies (three local authorities and one voluntary sector organisation). Each includes a researcher in residence, an evidence champion (a practitioner seconded to the project with protected time), and service user and carer advisors.
Our interviews suggest that research relevance and accessibility need to be baked in long before the output stage. One way to achieve this is through upstream collaboration with, and co-production of research priorities alongside social care stakeholders – those who use services as well as those who deliver, manage, or commission them. As one example of one way we are tackling this, our partnerships are addressing questions raised by staff and creating accessible summaries of existing research together.
At an individual level, social care practitioners talked about needing to feel confident in finding, reading, digesting, and assessing the quality of research. They also told us that they need time, permission, and the processes in place that enable them to apply these skills. The ConnectED project is providing skills training and some funded time to address this need.
Research will always be just one of many considerations in decision-making around individual social care needs, and so it’s vital that it is a useful as possible. Growing a diverse evidence base, making sure that what grows is relevant and accessible, and preparing the ground well so that practitioners can use what they find – our research suggests that it will be a combination of all these things that will help to make research in adult social care feel more necessity than luxury.
Through initiatives like ConnectED, we hope we are leaving fewer decision-makers feeling they are ‘shooting in the dark’. However, like most research projects, it provides only a short-term solution for the organisations involved. If we truly wish to see local authority adult social care departments building on or increasing their capacity and skills to use research to inform practice, longer-term approaches are urgently needed to bring both sides of the gap closer together.
Image credit: Photo by Thomas Lipke on Unsplash
Karen Gray is a Senior Research Associate in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. She is a Researcher in Residence on the ConnectED project. X/Twitter: @kcrgray. Institutional profile. Karen.gray@bristol.ac.uk
Other blog-post contributors:
Ailsa Cameron, Professor of Health and Social Care in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.
Christie Cabral, Senior Lecturer in the Bristol Medical School.
Geraldine Macdonald, Professor of Social Work in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.
Linda Sumpter, Senior Research Associate in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol.
For the full list of authors involved in the publication, read the Evidence & Policy paper on which this post is based.
Read the original research in Evidence & Policy:
Gray, K. Dibsdall, L. Sumpter, L. Cameron, A. Willis, P. Symonds J. Jones, M. McLeod, H. Macdonald, G. and Cabral, C. (2024). ‘Shooting in the dark’: implications of the research–practice gap for enhancing research use in adult social care. Evidence & Policy, DOI: 10.1332/17442648Y2024D000000024. OPEN ACCESS
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