Projects

Quick-ready summary

Eothen Care Homes has partnered with Newcastle University to combine their expertise in care and research.

Together, they aim to research, promote and share best practices with the aim of enhancing people’s experiences and care in care homes.

It is one of three new Research Practice Partnerships (RPPs) in the care home sector, as part of a national project funded by NIHR. The RPP model focusses not only on research informing practice but also on practice informing research, improving the use and usefulness of research.

Through sharing and learning together while working on a research project on staff uniforms, Eothen staff, residents, and their relatives have developed strong relationships with researchers.

Plans to raise the profile of the partnership and secure its future, are in progress.

Watch the partnership launch video, below.

What have we done so far?

We decided to use our first research project to strengthen connections and share insights about working in research and care homes.

This project focussed on staff uniforms in care homes, as there is not much published research evidence on this topic.

We worked together to design a survey for Eothen staff, followed by focus groups with staff and interviews with relatives and residents. Eothen managers have guided staff in adapting routine data collection for quality of life data to make it easier to explore the impacts of future changes or developments.

We keep everyone updated on our partnership work and research progress and findings through Eothen newsletters, presentations at national and international academic conferences, journal articles, and social care forums and events.

Building a research partnership: What did we learn?

We found that in person meetings worked well for discussions between Eothen staff and researchers, while informal, sometimes spontaneous conversations were a great way to engage residents and their relatives.

Eothen staff became more knowledgeable about research and built confidence through presenting at academic events. Researchers understood more about the day-to-day practices and issues in care home working and living.

Working in partnership is a meaningful and enjoyable experience, although it can be difficult to articulate and capture the more intangible positive impacts of these collaborations.

Sustainability poses a challenge as well, particularly in a context of project-based funding structures that do not prioritise the maintenance of ongoing relationships and background partnership work.

How did we involve people?

Newcastle University researchers have regular in person meetings with Eothen managers, and spend time talking to care home residents and relatives.

Through these conversations, we identify topics for potential research projects and discuss existing research evidence and developments.

What happens next?

We are planning how best to share the findings from our first project, and discussing how Eothen might respond to these from an organisational perspective.

A short report has been published around the findings of the care home uniform study, which you can download below.

We have identified our second project topic and we are developing plans for this study.

We are also focusing on raising the profile of the partnership by creating a short video and developing website content to describe and showcase our activities, as part of our efforts to secure the partnership’s future.

Acknowledgements

This work is a collaboration between Eothen Care Homes and researchers from Newcastle University. It is supported by the NIHR ARC North East and North Cumbria (multi-morbidity, ageing and frailty theme).

The partnership is funded by the NIHR Health Services and Delivery Research Programme (NIHR131335 – Developing Research Practice Partnerships to deliver novel, sustainable collaborations between adult social care research and practice in the UK). This is a national study to evaluate new models of research practice, led by Professor Annette Boaz, King’s College, London.

For more information please email [email protected]

(Last updated May 2025)