Nearly 700 care homes have joined a research project co-led by a UCL team that will monitor infections such as Covid-19, flu and norovirus to reduce the impact of outbreaks and improve quality of life for residents.
The care homes will share anonymised patient data and a data platform co-designed by people who live and work in care homes will connect this data to routine datasets already held by the NHS, allowing a comprehensive view of residents' health.
Insights from this data can then be used to improve care homes' strategies against outbreaks of, for instance, the "quad-demic" of Covid-19, flu, norovirus and RSV infections, as well as urinary tract infections (UTIs).
In the longer term, the project - known as the VIVALDI Social Care Project - aims to facilitate clinical trials in care homes, for instance trials of norovirus and RSV vaccines. Until now, care home residents have largely been excluded from clinical trials, despite them often having the most to gain from new treatments.
The project, funded by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), is carried out in collaboration with The Outstanding Society, Care England, and NHS England, with support from the campaign group Rights for Residents.
Principal investigator Professor Laura Shallcross (UCL Institute of Health Informatics) said: "For a long time we have needed better data in social care. Now we are making this happen. For the first time we are linking data from care providers to NHS data, at scale, so we can do research. We can feed this information back to improve the lives of residents and reduce the burden of infections. This is especially important as outbreaks can lead to homes being closed to relatives, which can be devastating for both residents and their families. By improving strategies against outbreaks, we hope to help care homes stay open to relatives who do so much to support care.
"We hope to ensure that by learning the lessons of Covid-19 we are better prepared for the next pandemic."
The project follows on from the VIVALDI study on Covid-19 in care homes, co-led by the same UCL team, which played a crucial role during the pandemic. It helped inform decisions on limiting staff movement between care homes to reduce infection risk and highlighted the need for sick pay for care home workers.
Kate Meacock, of Rights for Residents, said: "For a year during the pandemic, my mother, who was in a care home, was unable to see her family other than through a window. The effect it had on her was devastating. We need new ways to protect residents from infection which don't compromise their quality of life.
"Vivaldi Social Care seeks to provide this evidence by working in partnership with people who live in, visit and work in care homes and using anonymised data from care home residents. The project allows researchers to understand what is happening with infections in care homes, the effect infections may have on residents and most importantly how to help control them.
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