WORK PACKAGE 6
Investigating the extent, knowledge of and determinants of innovation in adult social care
AIMS
We are:
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describing quantitatively the characteristics and extent of adult social care (ASC) innovation, capacity for innovation, reasons for generating/adopting innovations, and knowledge and use of support for innovation
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testing hypotheses about determinants of innovation adoption derived from the empirical and theoretical work in earlier work packages.
METHODS
We conducted a survey of councils with social services responsibilities (CSSRs) and social care providers across England. Initially, a pilot survey tested:
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the sampling frame for provider organisations
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the feasibility of an online survey
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the questionnaire content and length
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the target individual(s) for the survey for each type of organisation surveyed
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strategies for encouraging completion
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strategies for linking survey responses to other data.
Following the pilot, the main survey was conducted.
Survey data was linked to existing data on: local area characteristics: socio economic and demographic factors, supply characteristics, geographical characteristics; and local social care system: local authority (LA) returns on expenditure, unit costs, social care coverage, and quality of life of social care recipients and carers .
We used statistical and econometric methods to analyse:
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distribution across areas and provider types of take-up of innovation, research capacity and organisational capacity, reasons for innovation generation/adoption and knowledge and use of available support infrastructure for innovation
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relationships between patterns of innovation, organisational characteristics and local environment such as local demand levels and supply factors
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relationships between take-up of innovation and value for LAs and providers, using proxies of care system performance and of provider performance.
OUTPUTS
We are preparing individual papers on each of the three analyses.