Every day County Council staff are helping customers and their
families to make decisions about their lives. These decisions are
based on knowledge of what works best, knowledge which comes from a
number of sources – from personal experience of working with
people, feedback from customers, service evaluations and
research.
Research is essential in planning and delivering effective and high
quality care services. The amount of research taking place across
care services has never been as great.
But how do we know that the research used to inform practice is of
a good enough standard? How can we ensure that the research we
undertake meets these standards too? How can members of the public
involved in research have confidence in the benefits of these
projects?
While universities and other professional bodies often employ
ethics committees to monitor and evaluate the quality of research,
there has been no formal way of doing this within care services...
until now.
A Research Governance Group has been established to evaluate and
give final approval for all research studies. Current members of
the group include:
- Head of Service Development Care
- Research & Analysis Manager
- Professional Advisors for both Adult & Children’s social
care services
- Representatives from Learning & Development
- Representatives from Performance
In addition to evaluating proposals the Research Governance Group
also supports researchers in developing projects to ensure they
meet quality standards.
Information and Forms
Information about all projects and their findings is placed on
the Social Care
Institute of Excellence (SCIE) National Research Database
Research Governance Group
Chaired by Julie Bateman, Head of Service Development, Care
Social Care Research Ethics Committee (SREC)
The Social Care Research Ethics Committee has been set up at the
request of the Department of Health to review adult social care
research proposals. The aim of the Committee is not to take
over from existing Research Ethics Committees (RECs) but to provide
a complementary service. Many social care studies are
currently reviewed by University RECs, with the approval of funding
councils, and this will continue to be the case where investigators
have access to them. However, research under the Mental
Capacity Act has to be reviewed by an National Research Ethics
Service Committee, and the SCREC will be eligible to review such
studies. No investigator will be expected to seek ethics
review from more than one REC.
Investigators and sponsors may have a number of reasons for seeking
REC review, such as that there are ethical issues; they are
consulting vulnerable participants; they want advice on
consent procedures or they need to reassure publications
editors. in line with the social care research community, the
SCREC will hold a broad view on what constitutes research.
Most service evaluations would be acceptable as suitable for review
by the SCREC, for example.
To find out more, visit
www.scie.org.uk/networks/screc
or contact the Committee Co-ordinator Barbara Cuddon, email:
barbara.cuddon@scie.org.uk.