It is likely the programme will eventually contract with one team. The contract will be awarded for a maximum of five years and maximum value of £3m for the whole contract, with an annual review point to ensure contractual compliance.
Please note the guidance sets out maximum expectations; the final focus and tally of evaluations delivered over the lifetime of the contract will be determined by the size of each individual evaluation agreed during the contract. Examples of what might be expected can be found in the current Birmingham, RAND and Cambridge Evaluation (BRACE) and Rapid Service Evaluation Team (RSET) evaluation of innovations teams’ work
This is a call for expressions of interest and the Health and Social Care Delivery Research (HSDR) programme welcomes a variety of team models to apply. Demonstration as to how potential applicant teams fulfil the items listed in the call specification is the primary purpose of this stage. Applicants invited to complete a full application will have an opportunity to set out their views as to how many and what type of evaluations could be delivered within the stated resource envelope. The programme will accept applications from a consortium of research providers
Applicants should refer to the EOI Guidance notes specific to this call as they complete the application form.
The standard DHSC research contract will apply.
The contractors will be required to work with:
- The HSDR Programme Director and Deputy Director
- NIHR Coordinating Centre
- Users of the evidence to be generated through this contract
Applicants will need to have experience in this type of work and be able to demonstrate methodological expertise and a track record in delivering mixed method evaluations of service innovations in a co-produced approach, to time and agreed cost. The programme accepts that content expertise is likely to have to be brought in for individual evaluations including social care subject matter experts from local authorities; private, charitable, and public sector providers; and people who draw on care and support; and this cost will have to be absorbed by the contract. It is likely that for at least some evaluations, time from frontline staff will need to be bought out by the contract.
Successful contractors will help develop thinking in terms of methodological approaches during the course of the contract, which will inform the wider social care research community; this will include reach into integrated care organisations and health care where there are touch points and handoff points for people who draw on care and support, and their carers, moving through care pathways. Part of this reach will have a capacity and capability building objective so that research use, evidence use, and doing research is increasingly embedded in social care organisations.
Speed of evaluation will vary according to need and the nature of the research question. However, the programme requires fast and responsive scoping and engagement with all stakeholders in a formative approach. Flexibility will be needed as workplans will change over time and in-year depending on the urgency of topics being referred to the team. Understanding of how this flexibility would work in the applicant team will need to be demonstrated during the assessment process.
Scope
The HSDR Programme funds research to improve the quality, effectiveness and accessibility of the health and care services, including evaluations of how health and care providers can improve delivery of services. The audience for this research is the public, people who draw on care and support, social care commissioners, managers and all types of social care provider organisations, as well as front line staff. The scope of work of the team to be commissioned will cover adults and children.
The team will be expected to scope out the detail of the work in each project, preparing a full evaluation protocol including the questions to be addressed, methods to be used, resources required in terms of full-time equivalents, and outputs to be delivered. In each case full co-production with service users and the full gamut of stakeholders will be needed.
The HSDR programme will require outputs including publications during the lifetime of the contract to reflect the delivery of discrete pieces of work. The exact nature of the final output will be discussed with the team at the appropriate time in the lifetime of the contract.
Final resource requirements and time needed for the individual evaluations will be negotiated with the HSDR programme secretariat, with reference to the Programme Director as appropriate. The timetables to which reports must be delivered will be tight in order to ensure utility of outputs to inform practice change and possible roll out of service change. NIHR peer review and feedback processes will likewise be rapid.
Evaluations and research will be related to the whole remit of the HSDR programme. Broadly areas will include those listed below:
- Workforce
- Experience of services by people who drawn on those services
- Equity and access to services
- Support for unpaid carers
- Prevention and wellbeing
- Assets-based and person-centred approaches
- People who fund their own care or have unmet needs
- Self-directed support and personalisation
- Integration and services for people with long-term conditions and long-term social care and support needs
- New models of care and support/service redesign
- Quality and safety of services
- Management, leadership and efficiency
- Use of technology and telecare
- Steps to facilitate wider implementation of interventions shown to be successful, or wider cessation of services shown to be less useful
- Methodological learning
- Ways to provide research use skills in the locations where the evaluations take place
Examples of funded studies in the HSDR portfolio relevant to this call
- Family Group Conferencing for children and families: Evaluation of implementation, context and effectiveness (Family VOICE), Jonathan Scourfield
- Developing research resources And minimum data set for Care Homes' Adoption and use (the DACHA study), Claire Goodman
- Relationship between care home staffing and quality of care: a mixed methods approach, Karen Spilsbury
- Kent Adult Social Care Partnership (KASCP), Ann-Marie Towers
- ConnectED: Connecting Evidence with Decision Making, Geraldine MacDonald
- Peninsula Adult Social Care Research Collaborative (PARC): Embedding research into practice to improve social care outcomes 2, Penelope Welbourne
Commissioning and monitoring, editorial review and publication will be managed by the HSDR programme secretariat. Processes will be commensurately fast, and outputs will be managed through publication in journals including the NIHR Journal as the contracts progress.
Assessment process and timetable
All submissions will receive feedback and a number (likely maximum of four) will be invited to complete a Stage two application form online to be considered by the HSDR funding committee. The committee may wish to interview the applicants and if so, the HSDR secretariat will coordinate attendance of 2-3 members of the applicant teams. It is likely this will be in late November/early December. In addition to the criteria set out in the call document, assessment will be looking to see that teams have:
- Understood the nature of rigorous and responsive rapid service evaluation, as an emerging and growing field of academic endeavour
- Understood the need for an appropriate mix of staff and skills, and the nature of flexible and rapid deployment of staff
- A track record in working in social care settings; evaluating service innovation on a diverse range of topics and methodologies across the qualitative and quantitative research spectrum
- Robust partnership working between higher education and social care services
- Experience of working in a highly applied and engaged manner with evidence users, service providers and people who draw on care and support.
The successful applicant will have best demonstrated an understanding of the service requirement and the ability to meet the specified criteria.
Resources
In commissioning a team or group with critical mass of evaluation and social care expertise, we would expect there to be efficiencies in activity. We will be commissioning for expertise in evaluating service innovation, working with networks in social care and local authorities, and deep knowledge of the complexity and diversity of social care needs, provision and experiences. Subject experts may need to be co-opted for individual evaluations. As part of the scoping of individual evaluations, the contractor will have to demonstrate that the need for additional specific expertise has been considered.
Likely minimum staffing requirements for a successful team are:
- A director who will take overall responsibility for the leadership of the team, close and effective liaison with evidence users, quality assurance and timely delivery of reports, and who has authority to re-deploy resources
- Dedicated senior staff time: to supervise, take responsibility for and quality assure each output; and be available to discuss key issues with members of the secretariat,
- Staff skilled in social care research and evaluation and used to employing methods of co-design and co-production of social care research, as well as working with service innovators including economics and modelling.
- Access to appropriate networks of evidence users in social care
- Proven project management expertise: Managing multiple and complex projects and evaluation teams.
Each evaluation will require a detailed overarching project timetable with milestones. As part of scoping an individual evaluation, the contractor will be asked to detail the project management arrangements to ensure quality and timeliness of delivery, and to explain how it fits within the overall evaluation teamwork portfolio.
Contract management and monitoring
The contractor will have a designated research manager at the secretariat and the contract will monitored with agreed minimum reporting points and review points as well as an annual financial reconciliation. This will be a research contract with a fixed end date. The purpose of monitoring is to enable discussion on current and future work under the contract and on any difficulties that may arise in the operation of the contract.