# Connected communities | Learning lessons from person-centred community-based support services’ implementation

## TL;DR

This study explores how person-centred community-based support services are implemented and how they adapted during the pandemic, aiming to provide practical recommendations for future services.

## Contribution

The study introduces a mixed-methods approach combining CFIR and NPT frameworks to analyze PCCBSS implementation and adaptation during the pandemic.

## Key findings

- The study will identify factors influencing PCCBSS implementation through document reviews and interviews.
- Findings will be presented in a toolkit and 'pen portraits' to guide future service implementation.
- The research will highlight how PCCBSS services interacted and adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

## Abstract

Person-centred community-based support services (PCCBSS) are an array of non-clinical services provided by organisations such as NHS Trusts, voluntary sector organisations, or local authorities.

All PCCBSS involve an individual (variously known as a 'social prescriber’, ‘link worker’, ‘signposter’, ‘navigator’, ‘connector’ or ‘neighbourhood coach’) who talks with a service user before directing them to a range of relevant community sources of social, emotional, and practical support.

Despite much recent investment in social prescribing, and its increased prominence within the policy context across England, little is understood about how PCCBSS are implemented. Research is required across different contexts to describe PCCBSS implementation; in particular, how social care providers successfully interact to support the implementation of PCCBSS, and how services responded to circumstances imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of this post-implementation mixed-methods study is to explore how PCCBSS are implemented and become part of usual working practice. Using three services in North West England as case studies, we will examine factors influencing PCCBSS implementation and establish where there is learning for the wider adult social care system.

The study comprises two work packages (WPs):

WP1: collecting data by reviewing service documents from three PCCBSS case studies;

WP2: interviewing staff and service users (≤20 participants per PCCBSS);

Key implementation data will be systematically abstracted (from WPs1&2) into a coding frame; combining contextual determinants from the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) with process-related domains from Normalization Process Theory (NPT).

The findings from WP1 and WP2 will be presented in the form of an illustrated ‘pen portrait’, developed collaboratively with Applied Research Collaboration North West Coast ARC NWC public advisers, to illustrate how implementation evolved for each of the PCCBSS across key time-points in the process (initiation; operation; maintenance). The findings will also inform an online implementation toolkit providing recommendations for setting up future PCCBSS.

Person-centred community-based support services (PCCBSS) are services that direct people to a range of activities that might help them improve their health and wellbeing. There is a lack of understanding about how these support services are put into practice, how services work with each other, and how these services responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of this study, named ‘Connected Communities’, is to find out how existing PCCBSS have been set up, and to provide recommendations for those hoping to do something similar.

There are two parts to the study: work package 1 (WP1) and work package 2 (WP2). WP1 will review existing documents from three PCCBSS, including published and unpublished reports, and extract any relevant information about how the services were set up. WP2 will interview service providers (staff in the PCCBSS who help support individuals) and linked providers (professionals who work in, or with, the PCCBSS either to refer individuals, or run local community services). These interviews aim to explore how each service compares to others, the experience of working for, or with, the service, and factors that make the service easier or harder to deliver. People who use the service (service users) will also be interviewed to find out what support they received, how well they felt their needs were supported, and their understanding of the service. The information about how the services were set up and delivered will be put into a framework, or selection of implementation factors, looking at the setting, the people involved, the design of the PCCBSS and the process of setting the services up. The findings from this ‘Connected Communities’ study will inform a list of recommendations, a sort of toolkit, for people wanting to set up similar services in the future.