Developing a Social Care Strengths and Vulnerability Index (SC-SVI)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Developing a Social Care Strengths and Vulnerability Index (SC-SVI) for older people: a Proof of Concept study in local authorities
IRAS ID
317413
Contact name
Paul Clarkson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 29 days
Research summary
Older citizens want to remain independent and manage well. Local authority Adult Social Care has a duty to actively encourage this, by assessing the possibilities of harms to older people’s well-being and assets they have to overcome them. They then arrange services or professional help, keeping in mind older people’s wishes, choices and their own strengths. This is not always easy. Older people can under-report difficulties. Social care professionals may not pick up on older people’s circumstances that let them know, in advance, whether there might be threats to their wellbeing. Data routinely collected by local authorities offers the potential of judging these threats to well-being, or picking up on strengths of older people that could lessen these threats.
From 1/03/22 to 29/02/24, we aim to discover if data could be used to help identify older people’s needs and potentially judge future threats to their well-being. We will test out the practicality of creating an electronic tool, from the data, offering a way to help organisations, and professionals, better judge the needs of older people. We aim to assist them in planning more appropriate care around older people’s circumstances, resources and strengths.
We will:
• Analyse data sets in two local authorities (Adult Social Care organisations), to create the tool.
• Test the tool’s acceptability with staff and older users, receiving social care, through qualitative interviews examining potential issues and challenges.
• Working with the local authorities and speaking to managers, find out the ways the tool could help with assessments or in planning future care.
• See if the tool can be held within local authority information systems and whether we would need additional data to make it work better.The learning from the project and the tool itself will be available to social care organisations across England to help them fulfil their responsibilities better.
REC name
Social Care REC
REC reference
23/IEC08/0012
Date of REC Opinion
18 May 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion