Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Dementia and social care
Social care which involves providing social work, personal care, protection or social support to people is predominantly delivered through services such as homecare, assisted living and care homes.
These services provide a vital source of support for many people with dementia and their families. Our research around social care and dementia focusses particularly on ways in which social care providers can provide good quality person-centred care through staff development or the application of specific interventions.
This video, developed with our expert by experience advisory group from the DCM EPIC trial (with link to EPIC trial web-page) in care homes, explains why conducting research in care homes and other social care settings is important.
Current and recent funded research and evaluation:
This study will carry out a feasibility cluster randomised controlled trial of the Cognitive Daisy (COG-D) in care homes. The COG-D is a package developed to help staff assess and plan care around people’s cognition. If the COG-D seems to lead to change and the trial is feasible to conduct, we intend to apply for further funding to conduct a larger scale trial.
Chief Investigator: Dr Petra Pollux, Lincoln University
Leeds Beckett Investigators: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research, Research for Social Care (NIHR RfSC)
Funding amount: £279,729
This study will assess the acceptability and feasibility of implementing an intervention that will support improved nutritional care for people with dementia who are living at home. It will involve training homecare staff to work in partnership with the carer of a person with dementia to identify individuals at risk of malnutrition and to address this in practical ways. We hope this will help to reduce the numbers of people becoming unwell and/or needing hospital care due to poor nutrition.
Chief Investigator: Professor Jane Murphy, Bournemouth University
Leeds Beckett Investigators: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research, Research for Patient Benefit (NIHR RfPB)
Funding amount: £247,270
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, most care homes stopped usual face-to-face visiting from relatives. The aim of this project is to identify and disseminate best practice approaches to supporting visiting for relatives of people living with dementia in care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chief Investigator: Professor Claire Surr
Leeds Beckett Investigators: Dr Rachael Kelley, Professor Anne-Marie Bagnall, Rebecca Platt, Olivia Robinson
Funder amount: Internally funded
In the DCM EPIC trial we experienced a high number of care home residents who were recruited but did not complete the full trial. This was largely due to expected deaths or to moving to another care home. This is known as ‘loss to follow-up’ and causes problems for trials because it means there may not be the required number of participants who complete the trial to provide robust results. This is a common challenge in trails in care home settings, but also applies to trials in other populations. This study is looking at a different type of trial design – known as an open cohort trial – where new participants are recruited throughout the trial period. It will explore how the analysis of trail data can be undertaken to be able to accommodate this ongoing recruitment and different periods of time exposed to the intervention.
Chief Investigator; Dr Rebecca Walwyn, University of Leeds
Leeds Beckett Investigators: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: Medical Research Council (MRC) Methodology bolt-on
Funding amount: £251,787
Evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) to Enable Person-centred Care for people with dementia and staff: A UK cluster randomised controlled trial In Care Homes (DCM-EPIC trial)
This study investigated the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of Dementia Care MappingTM (DCM) as a method for supporting care home staff to delivered person-centred care.
To read more about the study please visit the EPIC Trial project page.
Chief Investigator: Professor Claire Surr
Leeds Beckett investigators: Dr Alys Griffiths, Dr Rachael Kelley
Funder: National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme (NIHR HTA)
Funding amount: £2,434,490
This trial led by Professor Jo Booth at Glasgow Caledonian University, aims to evaluate the effectiveness of electric tibial nerve stimulation for reducing urinary incontinence in care home residents.
Chief Investigator: Professor Jo Booth – Glasgow Caledonian University
Leeds Beckett investigators: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme
This consultancy project involved review and support for the revision and development of Barchester’s 10-60-06 quality assessment and development programme, implemented across all their care homes.
Consultancy lead: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: Barchester Healthcare
The Person-Centred Observation and Reflection Tool (PORT) is a reflective observation tool, grounded in person-centred care, to support staff to develop empathic skills and their own practice. It addresses the current gap for a simple to learn and use, observation tool that is accessible to all staff. It was developed by the international consortium the Person First dementia Network (PFdN). A network of which the Centre for Dementia Research at Leeds Beckett University is a member.
Chief Investigator: Professor Claire Surr
Funder: None to date
To read more about PORT please visit the PORT project page
