Better care moves for older people: co-production of practice guidance

Moves between care settings in later life are challenging for older people but are also sometimes unavoidable. Social care practitioners have a significant role in supporting older people moving into and between social care settings, but may lack understanding of the needs of older people and their carers and the confidence, guidance or knowledge of resources. This co-designed ‘Better Care Moves’ project seeks to provide practitioners and other stakeholders with coherent evidence and a practical toolbox that will be used to inform and support older people’s moves into and between social care settings or services (e.g. home care, care homes or extra care housing). Through our networks and partnerships in Kent and East Sussex, we have established a co-production group, including four older people and/or family carers, four social care practitioners/managers working in different adult social care organisations and four social care researchers.

Working together, we:

1) conducted a literature review to identify and synthesise what is already known about key unmet move-related needs of older people and the approaches used by social care practitioners in supporting moves;

2) interviewed 6 older people, 11 family carers and 10 social care practitioners who have lived experience of moves (or supporting moves) between social care settings/services or from hospital into social care settings; and

3) are co-producing move-related practice guidance for social care practitioners, grounded in real-life experience and evidence from the literature review and interviews. This guidance would include a move-related practical toolbox, accessible and creative learning briefings, key lessons from good practice examples, and case scenarios with identified needs, challenges and potential solutions/resources. We are preparing the outputs in both written and video formats.

Ultimately, we aim to provide practitioners, older people, family carers and local decision makers with coherent evidence and practice guidance for supporting older people’s moves into and between different social care settings.