Our Research & Projects

The evaluation of Brightlife, which is a Big Lottery funded project that aims to tackle social isolation among older people living in Cheshire West. The project is overseen by a consortium of local organisations from public, voluntary and private sectors led by Age UK Cheshire and older people are involved in all aspects of the project and have representatives on all working and strategic groups.

Brightlife Qualitative Evaluation

Brightlife is a consortium of local (West Cheshire based) organisations led by Age UK Cheshire. The consortium was successful in a bid for funding from the Big Lottery’s Ageing Better programme September 2014.  Ageing Better is one work stream of The Big Lottery’s Fulfilling Lives strategy with a total investment of £78 million; there are 14 consortia in total across England.  The thrust of the “Ageing Better” work stream is to tackle and prevent social isolation for older people. 

Brightlife commission a range of activities from community organisations and have adopted a Social Prescribing Service, which is being piloted in three areas in West Cheshire: Malpas, Winsford and Chester. 

The Centre for Ageing and Mental Health has been commissioned to conduct an evaluation of Brightlife. The aim is to identify and measure the impact of “Brightlife” initiatives on both the lives of older people who participate and the organisations that have been commissioned to deliver the initiatives. 

The qualitative element includes four streams:

• A literature review on Social Prescribing
• Pen portraits of target areas
• Participant impact data, and 
• Organisational process data. 

The Participant impact data involves interviewing older people who have participated in Brightlife funded activities, in addition to capturing quantitative data captured via questionnaire. The organisational process data stream involves interviewing: 

• Members of the Older People’s Alliance (OPA), a group of 15-20 older people who inform and influence the direction of the Brightlife project. Five Alliance members represent the Alliance on the Brightlife Partnership
• Commissioned Providers
• The Social Prescribing Team 

Brightlife Volunteer Co-researchers

The Centre for Ageing and Mental Health has adopted a collaborative approach working with older people as co-researchers.  The University team believe that this approach is the most appropriate way to evaluate Brightlife as it places older people in the heart of the evaluation, valuing and utilising their:

• Existing skills and abilities, and
• Knowledge about and experience of the local community

The University team provide technical and academic expertise as well as supporting and working with the co-researchers throughout the evaluation. In practice, co-researchers work collaboratively alongside staff from the University in all areas of the evaluation, including:

• Selection of methods of data collection
• Data collection
• Data analysis
• Writing-up findings
• Making recommendations based on the evaluation

The ultimate aim of this collaborative approach is to enable older people to develop their existing skills, and attain new skills and knowledge to create a sustainable community of co-researchers who can design and undertake evaluations of future community based interventions.

For further information please contact Professor Paul Kingston p.kingston@chester.ac.uk

Halton Clinical Commissioning Group has introduced five new Primary Care interventions, funded by the Prime Minister’s Challenge Fund.

Prime Ministers GP Access Fund – GP Extra

The study sought to address a lack of insight about patient demand. To this end, the study aimed for a descriptive analysis of the extended access patient cohort by examining: extended access to GP appointments, addressing low screening uptake, and a community pharmacy. We have been commissioned to evaluate the impact of these interventions on service users and providers.

In October 2013, the prime minister put forward a fund of £50 million to improve patients’ access to the primary care. The fund targeted primary care surgeries to introduce new initiatives that enhance patients’ access to the surgeries. The first wave of 20 pilots was announced in April 2014. In 2015/16, further funding of £100 million was put forward for the second wave. In the second wave, 37 pilot projects were introduced. One of those pilot projects was proposed by the Halton CCG, which requested an evaluation of the effectiveness of the scheme on enhancing patient access and to direct future spending.

One element of the of the Halton CCG initiative is extended access to GP services in Widnes. The service provides an additional 100 ‘out of hours’ GP appointments per week. All appointments are held at one urgent care centre. Nine GP practices are participating in this extended access provision, which commenced on the 11th November 2015.

The study sought to address a lack of insight about patient demand. To this end, the study aimed for a descriptive analysis of the extended access patient cohort by examining:

•    Demand of the service
•    Nature of the demand
•    Needs of patients accessing the service
•    Limitations of the service.

A stratified sampling approach was adopted. Anonymised patient data was extracted from the GP EMIS system to assess normal cohort distributions. The GP Extra database was accessed to extract anonymised patient data for patients that had attended GP Extra appointments. A sample of patient records were followed-up in practice to gain insights into the patient journey before and after their GP Extra appointment.

For further information please contact Professor Paul Kingston at p.kingston@chester.ac.uk

Author – Dr Elizabeth Christopher with additions from Professor Paul Kingston.

vimeo.com/259643600

The health impact of ‘scams’, this is a growing research stream in the Centre. This project includes an evaluation of an anti-scams initiative and the commissioning and analysis of two Mass Observation Directives. We have also been commissioned by Palgrave McMillan to publish a  pivot-book focusing on the impact of "scams" on older people.

The Mass Observation Project is a UK based project that documents and records the lives of people living in the UK. The project collects data via a panel of 500 members of the public who respond to written questions known as "Directives" three times each year. The “Directives” comprise of two or three themes exploring political, social and personal issues relevant to the UK.  Our first Directive focuses on dementia and the second takes a wider perspective exploring how people identify and deal with “scams”, as well as the impact being "scammed" has on the health and wellbeing of those who have fallen victim. 

The aim is to add to health related data and produce a more in depth paper about the health impact of scams, provide data for other papers (data has already been identified that relates to the “Vagaries of scams”) and look towards producing a methodology paper on using Mass Observation data.

Scams – Trading Standards Officers

The social and economic impact of scams is becoming increasingly recognised as a policy issue in the UK (Brennan & Coppack, 2008).

In June 2014 the National Trading Standards Scams Team was created with the aim of joining up the work being undertaken concerning “scam detection, prevention, enforcement and education” across Local Authorities in the UK (Knowledge Hub, 2016). As such, scams have become an area of increasing importance for Trading Standards Officers (TSOs) working at the local level. However, the context within which local professionals are working to address scam related issues is ambiguous and challenging with a lack of "ownership of scams" at both national and local levels (reference). Drawing on 13 qualitative interviews with TSOs from a number of local authorities in England and members of the National Scams Team, the objectives of this study are:

• To examine Trading Standards Officers’ conceptualisations of scams and scam victims.
• To explore the work being undertaken by Trading Standards Officers in relation to intervention with scam victims and prevention among those at risk.
• To examine Trading Standards Officers’ understanding of the health and well-being consequences of scams and how they view their role in promoting health and well-being more generally.
• To explore the enabling and constraining factors experienced by Trading Standards Officers in relation to addressing the health and well-being needs of both scam victims and potential scam victims, including how they negotiate the boundaries of their roles alongside those of their public health colleagues.

Funding for this project was provided by the University of Chester’s QR fund. 

For further information please contact Professor Paul Kingston at p.kingston@chester.ac.uk