Social care services were used by 1.8 million working age and older people in England in 2007/08, with over £16.5 billion spent by councils, and £3.52 billion by older people, on social care services last year (CSCI figures). These services aim to meet a wide range of individual needs, but also face a number of challenges. We think that research can help to highlight those challenges and contribute to the improvement of social care practice.
Who are we and what do we do?
At the NIHR School for Social Care Research (NIHR SSCR) we are undertaking and commissioning research to improve adult social care practice in England, and so improve individual lives.
We are funded by the National Institute for Health Research and have a budget of £15 million over the next five years. The NIHR SSCR is a partnership between five leading academic centres of social care research in England: the London School of Economics and Political Science, King's College London and the Universities of Kent, Manchester and York.
We will try to answer questions about how users of care services can be given more control and greater choice; how family carers can find a better balance between their care responsibilities and their working lives; whether there are better ways of commissioning services; and how social care can mesh effectively with health care and other services. These are just some of the areas that could be covered by the research programme.
We aim to provide high-quality evidence-based practice recommendations.
Make a difference to adult social care research
As someone who may use - now or in the future - work within or undertake research about social care, your opinions and ideas will help us to identify research issues that are important to you.
So tell us what you think. What are the key questions or issues that need to be addressed today? What are your experiences of adult social care and what did you conclude were the research questions that need to be addressed? What difference can we make through our research?
Your communications will be treated in confidence but we regret that we cannot enter into individual correspondence with all those who write to us.
We want to hear your thoughts, views and ideas on any of the following:
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Topics in adult social care that need further research
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Specific research questions
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The methods needed to answer them
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The ways that research findings can be translated into a form that can aid the development of practice
Your ideas will feed into developing our research agenda, its topics, methods and processes, which in turn may lead to research that makes a positive impact to care and support, and thereby to individual lives.
How can you contribute?
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Use our electronic consultation form (Online research suggestions form)
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Email us at sscr@lse.ac.uk
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Join us by submitting a research proposal. Please visit https://in-tendhost.co.uk/lse/ (Current Tenders) for information regarding future Calls.
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Members of the NIHR School's Executive will also be at conferences and meetings on social care (such as the NIHR Regional Research Conferences, Social Services Research Group annual conference), where they would be happy to talk to you. See the Events page for further information.
What next?
We will consider every suggestion received. Due to limitations in research funding available for NIHR SSCR-funded projects, it will not always be possible to fund projects that address all of the suggestions received. However, we will endeavour to learn from those suggestions and develop our research agenda through a better understanding of the types and themes of research projects that are suggested to us.
We look forward to hearing from you.