The University of Stirling seek to recruit a Research Fellow to work on an NIHR funded study called:  Improving end of life care: supporting the workforce and reducing hospitalisations through an implementation study in care homes.

“We are looking for an experienced health researcher to manage the day to day running of the project and take a lead in the co-ordination of data collection and qualitative data analysis. The role will be based at the University of Stirling and will require some travel across the UK.

The Research Fellow will be centrally involved in all aspects of the study including project development, patient/public involvement, data collection and management, data analysis and dissemination of findings in a variety of formats for different audiences.

This project aims to improve palliative care to care home residents. We developed an approach in Australia called ‘Palliative Care Needs Rounds’ (hereafter referred to as ‘Needs Rounds’). In our Australian research of 1700 care home residents, we showed that Needs Rounds led to substantial cost savings due to significantly decreased number and duration of admissions to hospital, residents had improved quality of death/dying, and staff improved in their capability to provide end of life care.

In this study we will co-design and implement an acceptable, feasible and scalable UK model of Needs Rounds, in order to improve the lives and deaths of care homes residents. The study uses a critical realist implementation science framework (iPARIHS), and has two phases:

Phase 1 involves qualitative interviews (n=40) with key stakeholders (residents, relatives, specialist palliative care clinicians, care home clinicians/managers, and acute care staff). Interview analysis will then feed into workshops to co-design UK Needs Rounds.

Phase 2 involves testing and refining the theories generated in Phase 1. We will assess acceptability, appropriateness, feasibility, implementation cost, coverage, and sustainability. These assessments will report contexts, mechanisms and outcomes to generate a mid-range theory of implementation which conceptualizes the core learning from across all sites.

Patient and public involvement is central to this project, and three of our co-investigators are ‘experts by experience’. The appointed research fellow will work alongside a research fellow with expertise in quantitative data analysis, and a large interdisciplinary research team from across the UK.”

 

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