BOUGH: Broadening Our Understanding of Good Home Care 

Project Duration

May 2015 - June 2017

Funder

NIHR School for Social Care Research (SSCR)

Aim

To examine home care for people with dementia so that its function in community support can be described fully, with a view to service development and effective commissioning.

Objectives 

1. To inform home care policy service development and workforce training by answering the question: What does ‘good’ home care look like?
2. To establish what home carers do in practice for people with dementia.
3. To investigate o what it feels like to give and to receive, home care o how home care relationships are experienced by care workers and recipients.
4. To identify the stresses and rewards of working with people with dementia in home care.
5. To establish what key factors influence home care quality.

Methods

1. The study involves several methods of qualitative data collection involving clients and staff of two home care franchises in the East Midlands of England:  participant observation of home care work
2. Interviews with o clients and family carerso home care personnelo service commissioners
3. Diary  study
4. Job analysis of the work of home care workers nationwide

Stage of Development

Ethical approval for the project has been obtained, and Samantha Wilkinson and Lucy Perry-Young have been appointed as the two Research Fellows to work on the project. Participant observation of home care work is ongoing and the diary study is about to get underway.