Tara Hughes is a research officer within the ADR Wales Social Care team. Tara works closely with researchers interested in social care data, and those working within social care to help realise the opportunities and insight that linked admin data can provide for the sector.
In this blog, Tara discusses a recent webinar hosted by the social care team which discussed data developments within the sector and the exciting research opportunities available.
Happy new year from the ADR Wales Social Care team. We hope you enjoyed your Christmas and New Year holidays. We had a wonderful end of the year in the group, which saw us host our first webinar where we brought together those working in, or interested in adult social care research, particularly using linked administrative data.
Attendees included researchers and professionals from across adult social care. If you were not able to attend, you can watch the recording here, and the presentations are also available here.
This was the first webinar delivered by the ADR Wales Social Care team as part of a group that we’ve setup called the Adult Social Care Linked Data Research Group. Further information on the group and how you can get involved can be found here.
The webinar focused on the Adults Receiving Care and Support (ARCS) Census, which, when ready, is set to be a significant asset for linked data research within adult social care. The session started with a presentation from Joseph Wilton, Head of Analysis and Innovation in Welsh Government who provided attendees with an update on this new dataset and described how his team and other teams in Welsh Government work with the census data. Joseph began with an explanation of why this census was created, and the inspiration it took from the Children’s Receiving Care and Support Census. Details were outlined as to who will be part of the census, including what data is being collected on these individuals. And details on how the census has been developed over the past two years in collaboration with local authorities across Wales were provided. Joseph also shared with attendees the ongoing development of the Unpaid Carers Census; this will be an invaluable source of information on unpaid carers across Wales who have received a statutory carer’s needs assessment within the year of collection. He added that this census is currently being piloted within Local Authorities with the intention of beginning the first collection this year.
Next, researchers from the Centre for Adult Social Care Research (CARE) gave us a very thorough and insightful explanation of how they intend to use this new census data in some of the research projects they are planning.
Beginning with Sophie Wood, Research Fellow at the CARE Centre and the Centre for Trials provided attendees with a brief background to the CARE Centre. Sophie continued to share her enthusiasm for the new ARCS census data and the opportunities for linkage to other administrative datasets, highlighting that despite only having one year of collection available; by linking the ARCS census data to other data such as health data, research may be able to make predictions about the type of care and support that may be required for certain groups of individuals.
Attendees then heard from Fiona Lugg-Widger, Deputy Director for Data at the Centre for Trials Research within Cardiff University. They have been working with routinely collected social care data for over a decade, particularly the Children’s Receiving Care and Support Census data, where they have been able to evaluate interventions within the Children’s Social Care sector using routinely collected data. Fiona’s role within the Centre is to look how they can utilise and enhance research by using routinely collected data. Fiona shared with attendees some of the findings from the recent scoping review looking at what adult social care data is currently available for linkage across the UK, which you can access here. Fiona highlighted the importance of this new ARCS census to support research within adult social care across the whole population of Wales, and the opportunities and possibilities in the future as this data becomes available.
Abigail Palmer, a PhD student in the CARE Centre also shared her planned PhD project which will look at inequalities within adult safeguarding across Wales using the ARCS Census data.
To finish the webinar Lynsey Cross from the ADR Wales Social Care team provided an update on the national research priority setting exercise they are conducting. The team are working alongside Social Care Wales to find out what stakeholders across adult social care would like linked data research to understand using routinely collected data. Lynsey explained that the team have followed a specific process with the aim of producing a list of research priorities which will inform future data acquisition plans and research activities.
We encourage you to watch the full webinar recording here, and if you have any further questions for the speakers, their contact details are also available on the presentations here.
If you would like to become a member of the Adult Social Care Linked Data Research Group, or stay up to date on the activities offered by the group, feel free to contact myself: t.j.hughes@swansea.ac.uk or tara.hughes@socialcare.wales
We would also love to hear what you thought of this webinar and would value any further feedback about the group and its activities over the next year, you can fill in our feedback form here.