At the Forum in May

The Home Care Research Forum provides an opportunity for researchers, people working in the field and others with an interest in homecare to gather and discuss current exciting research and to establish new networks and connections.

Talk 1: Dr Bethany Manning (Clinical Psychologist, University of East London)

Title: Understanding Older People’s First Experiences of Home Care: How Do They Describe Receiving Home Care for the First Time?

Summary: This talk will provide an overview of a research project that explored older people's accounts of receiving home care for the first time. The research focused on understanding what it means for older people to start receiving home care, including how this experience might influence their self-view and psychological well-being. Interviews were conducted with older individuals who had begun receiving home care in the East of England, and the transcripts were analysed to identify themes. This presentation will share the findings of this research and discuss the potential implications.

Talk 2: Drs Kate Hamblin, Diane Burns, & Cate Goodlad - University of Sheffield/ Sheffield University Management School

Title: Technology and care in the UK: Policy, storylines and practice

Summary: Policy discourse in the United Kingdom presents technology as a solution to challenges facing social care provision, including issues of quality and the mismatch between care workforce supply and demand. This discourse characterises technology as ‘transformative’, enhancing both care quality and creating efficiencies. In this seminar, we interrogate these claims using interviews with care and technology-enabled care sector stakeholders and case study data from home care providers and workers. The ‘story lines’ (Hajer, 1995) presented by care sector stakeholders and homecare managers converged with those of the policy discourse, emphasising technology’s benefits for quality and efficiency. The case studies with home care providers however highlighted several implications for care work and organisational practice in homecare provision: the technologies observed sometimes produced additional tasks and responsibilities, undermining the efficiency and quality story lines. The experience of care providers and workers engaging with technologies in homecare warrant further investigation and greater prominence to challenge a discourse which is at times overly simplistic and optimistic.

This series

This event is part of the Home Care Research Forum, convened by Monica Leverton of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce. See all Policy Research Unit events.