6th UK and Ireland Implementation Science Research Conference 2023
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PRESENter
Cindy Brooks
presenter biography
Cindy Brooks is a Research Fellow and Medical Sociologist within the Ageing and Dementia Research Group, School of Health Sciences and Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Wessex Implementation Team at the University of Southampton.
Cindy is Lead investigator of a project to co-produce an online implementation module to support the successful uptake of innovations in practice. She also leads with Dr Michelle Myall, a project to evaluate a co-produced web-based Implementation Toolkit. Combining enterprise with research is integral to Cindy’s work, and she leads projects focused upon using her combined professional roles as researcher, artist and musician to co-produce and research innovative art and music tools to support wellbeing. She is also involved in a study to improve implementation of a compassionate care initiative (CCI) in mental health settings, as well as research intervention studies in the area of polypharmacy and person-centred care relating to social care settings.
background
This paper presents findings from a novel theoretically informed agency-structure study involving implementation of a Compassionate Care Initiative (CCI) in a NHS mental health setting during Covid-19 in the UK. We argue that implementation during Covid-19, not only compounded existing barriers to implementation identified in earlier studies reporting on implementation of CCI in acute hospital settings, such as staffing levels and working practices [1,2,3], but presented an unprecedented implementation landscape of uncertainty operating at micro, meso and macro levels with key implications for conceptualising sustainability.
MEthod
The study adopted a longitudinal case study design [4] in one NHS mental health setting in the UK involving semi-structured interviews with staff involved in the implementation of CCI (managers, facilitators and frontline care staff including registered nurses), alongside documentary analysis of key documents. A theoretically informed approach, involving a combination of structuration theory (ST) and Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) informed analysis [5,6,7,8].
results
The study adopted a longitudinal case study design [4] in one NHS mental health setting in the UK involving semi-structured interviews with staff involved in the implementation of CCI (managers, facilitators and frontline care staff including registered nurses), alongside documentary analysis of key documents. A theoretically informed approach, involving a combination of structuration theory (ST) and Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) informed analysis [5,6,7,8].
Conclusion
Navigating uncertainty in the implementation of CCI during Covid-19 provides invaluable insight into the often contradictory dynamics of implementation in highly adaptive circumstances. It prioritises the importance of understanding the perceptions and experiences of those at the forefront of this agency and structure interface, conceptualising sustainability as a fluid and dynamic space to be continually revisited in accordance with these dynamics.