Cancer care co-ordinators and support workers supporting specialist cancer nursing services

Description

Cancer care co-ordinators and support workers supporting specialist cancer nursing services: Development work for a larger and longer grant.

Aims

The aims of this work are

• to establish the current evidence base to ensure that questions in a future funding  application are appropriate, have relevance and are feasible
• to ensure engagement and commitment of a research team with the right skill mix to deliver a competitive application (and, if successful, deliver the research)
• to engage support for the research of a network comprised of service commissioners, providers, practitioners, and service users
• to explore perspectives of different stakeholders and their priorities for any evaluation of the cancer care coordinator/ support worker role.

Method

There are 3 main areas of activity associated with this application.

1. Scoping review of literature (objective 1) 
2. Two engagement events (objective 2 and 3) with:
(i) potential members of the research team and (ii) potential members of a supporting network including service commissioners, providers, practitioners, and service users.  
3. Two focus groups (objective 4) with:
(i) care coordinators/ support workers and (ii) other care providers/ professionals.

Background

There has been evolution of support roles in many areas of nursing practice and an increasing focus on the evaluation of these roles.  However, the deployment and work of cancer care coordinators or support workers supporting the work of cancer clinical nurse specialists (CNS) remains new.  

Support roles have been introduced at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (and nationally) to support a range of cancer CNS roles. We are undertaking the preparatory work necessary to develop an application for national evaluation of this role.  This preparatory work is important for the successful development of a competitive application, by the best team who are embedded in the necessary networks to support the application. Importantly, we need to establish priorities for NHS commissioners and provider services and how findings of research in this area could most usefully inform decision making processes about use of care co-ordinators and support workers in this important area of care.

People

Principal Investigator:
Dr Kate Farley, University of Leeds

Co-investigators:
Professor Karen Spilsbury, University of Leeds
Dr Louise Schreuders, University of Leeds
Karen Henry, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Funding body: Funded by Research Pump Priming Fund, University of Leeds (£4,565)

Contact: Dr Kate Farley, University of Leeds