Innovations in Adult Social Care and Social Work Report

Background

There are many innovations in adult social care and social work across the UK. Therefore, it is necessary to identify top priorities for evaluation.

Aims

The aim of this project was to identify and prioritise a shortlist of top priority innovations to evaluate in adult social care and social work.

Methods

The identification of innovations followed an adapted version of the James Lind Alliance method for priority setting. We followed four steps: 1) Identification of innovations, 2) Development of criteria for shortlisting, 3) Grouping and sifting innovations and 4) Prioritisation of innovations in a workshop setting.

Findings

One hundred and fifty-eight innovations were suggested. Twenty of these were included in the final shortlist. Twenty-three participants attended the prioritisation workshop. They included people who use adult social care services, practitioners, academics/researchers, commissioners/policy makers and carers. The top five priorities, which were agreed during the workshop, are shown in Box 1. The key themes and principles that informed these decisions are described in this report.

Limitations

Given the short period of time available for the horizon scanning, certain innovations may have been missed from the final shortlist. Similarly, some innovations that were included may have already been, or currently are being evaluated.

Conclusion

This approach was successful in identifying a large number of innovations in a short period of time, developing a shortlist and identifying the top five priorities. The next stage will be to conduct further scoping of the top five innovations (and existing/planned evaluations), in order to identify two innovations that can be evaluated by the two rapid evaluation teams.