An initiative to provide better insights from data on adult social care in Wales has launched.
The Social Care Linked Data Lab (CARE Lab), led by Cardiff University's Centre for Adult Social Care Research (CARE), has received £1,441,577 in funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
This project will be the first in the UK to link routine datasets on adult social care services to other sources of information, such as health care, children's social care and the 2021 census using securely-held anonymised data available with the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank, the national trusted research environment (TRE) for Wales. CARE Lab will provide the fullest picture of who gets social care across Wales, with the ultimate aim of informing policy and improving services in Wales and across the UK.
Professor Jonathan Scourfield (CARE) and Dr Fiona Lugg-Widger from Cardiff University's Centre for Trials Research will co-lead the project, in collaboration with researchers and policy experts from CASCADE , Swansea University, the London School of Economics, Social Care Wales, the Welsh Government and Disability Wales.
Professor Scourfield said: "Large amounts of routine data are collected in public services. For example, every time we have a hospital appointment or social worker visit, a record is kept by the NHS or local authority. In social care, this data is underused, and so much could be learned by bringing it together. The social care sector faces many challenges, and better use of data could be key to improving services."
Dr Lugg-Widger added: "By linking data sets from different public services - such as general practice records and local authority social services, our research team will look for patterns and trends that could inform how individuals are cared for. Importantly, this can be done securely and responsibly, protecting individuals' privacy."
Interviews with social care staff, people receiving care and support, and family carers will also be conducted to try and understand the patterns found by researchers.
A Lived Experience Group will meet every three months throughout the project. This will be led by a disabled person with experience of accessing social care and will include a diverse range of members. People from this group will have the opportunity to help with analysing research data if they wish.
