Social Care Recovery & Resilience: Learning lessons from international responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in long-term care systems

Research question What can we learn from international evidence and experiences in order to support the recovery of the social care sector and to inform the development of policies to prevent and manage future outbreaks in social care settings in England? Background The first wave of Covid-19 has had an enormous impact on people who use and provide long-term care in England, with substantial excess mortality, compared to previous years, both for people who use home care and who live in care homes, and other impacts on mental and physical health, it has also had a major impact financial impact on care providers. As England faces a second wave and considers the recovery of the sector, there is an opportunity to learn more in-depth from relevant experiences of other countries in implementing measures to prevent and mitigate these impacts in care settings and through taking a systematic and rigorous approach to synthesizing emerging scientific evidence about which measures have worked well or not. Aims and objectives We aim to facilitate learning from the scientific evidence and relevant experiences of other countries in preventing and mitigating Covid, as well as recovering from its impacts in social care setting through: Co-development of a framework to provide strategic direction for how the social care sector in England can recover from, and respond to, Covid-19 (we define the social care sector as care provided in residential and community settings, by paid and unpaid carers) Synthesis of international evidence and lessons learnt that are relevant to the English social care sector Informing the development of policies and practices to support recovery and better prevent and manage future outbreaks Methods We will use situational analysis and Theory of Change (ToC) to establish a framework from which to assess the relevance of international experiences and evidence to the social care system in England. We will then carry out scoping reviews to map and synthesise empirical evidence on measures that can support the social care sector in preventing and mitigating the negative impact of Covid. We will then use a case study approach, including document analysis and interviews, to review in detail the experiences and learnings from 4 countries. Finally, we will apply the framework developed through ToC to synthesise findings from these work streams. Timelines for delivery The project plans to start on the 1st of November and will last for 18 months. The work plan has been organized to deliver outputs in a timely manner as practicable, recognising the critical nature of the Covid pandemic. Anticipated impact and dissemination The project s framework and priorities will be co-developed with stakeholders, to ensure that the research is relevant and useful within an English social care context. The team is well positioned to ensure effective and timely dissemination through their own policy and practice networks, their institutions, relationships with media and the dissemination platforms provided by their respective institutions and the LTCcovid.org website.