Shared Lives outcome tool review: Expressions of interest

My Shared Life (MSL) is an outcome measuring tool developed by PSSRU Kent University which has been offered for several years via a bespoke online portal to 150 local Shared Lives provider organisations across the UK by the UK membership body for Shared Lives schemes and Shared Lives carers, Shared Lives Plus. The tool is a 10 item questionnaire filled in by the person using Shared Lives, with support from their advocate and/or a member of the Shared Lives team locally, to track their health, wellbeing and independence outcomes at intervals determined by the local organisation. A number of Shared Lives schemes have signed up to use the tool, but they are still in the minority, and they do not typically go on to use the outcome tool consistently with all of the people they support.

Shared Lives schemes deliver regulated personal care, either directly as part of a council’s adult social care department or commissioned by one, and they are registered and inspected by the Care Quality Commission and its equivalents in the UK home nations. Schemes are expected to be able to demonstrate evidence of outcomes. The tool was designed with involvement of stakeholders and improvements subsequently made to address usability issues.

We wish to understand the reasons for the low take up and use of the tool, and to identify actions we can take to address them. Reasons could be technological, to do with usability, based on outcome measuring being a low priority, competition from other outcomes approaches, accessibility issues, a combination of these, or something else.

We wish to commission a partner organisation with suitable expertise and capacity to:

• Conduct stakeholder research with local Shared Lives scheme workers and managers primarily, and other relevant stakeholders as identified
• Identify the reasons for low take-up
• Identify solutions for low take-up

Please express an interest, outlining:

• Your relevant experience and skills in this area
• The individuals who will be involved in this work and their relevant experience and expertise
• The approach you will take to gathering evidence and reasons for it
• The timeline for the work
• The resources and staff time you will utilise, and an overall budget
• Any delivery risks you foresee and their mitigations

Please propose a budget no greater than £10,000 + VAT.

To express interest please send an expression of interest outlining your responses to the specifications and questions above.

Expressions of interest should be no longer than four A4 pages (12 point text) and must be received by email by no later than 5pm on Friday 22 April.

Expressions of interest should be sent to:

Lynne Harrison, Head of Membership, lynne@sharedlivesplus.org.uk