What research would help older people?

Would you like to complete a survey about what you think is important to older people?

Researchers at the University of Leeds and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are working on a project to identify research priorities for older people who live in the community and who have health or mobility problems. This is part of a larger programme of work, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (the research arm of the NHS), that aims to improve the health and well-being of older people in our region (https://www.arc-yh.nihr.ac.uk/what-we-do/older-people).

The first important, and critical, step in this research programme is to identify, directly from older people and their carers, what their priorities are.

These priorities will then form the basis for the next stage of the research: in which the research team will develop an intervention to address the top priority. For example, it might be that people say that “having more supports or aids to help with mobility” is the most important priority. The research team would then design a research study to test out the best ways of providing appropriate supports or aids to those who might benefit from them, and look at whether they did indeed improve mobility. If this approach was shown to be effective, they would then be able to make recommendations that it become a routine service offer.

Liz Graham, Researcher on this project says: “many older people live with a number of health conditions or difficulties that affect their daily lives. Through research we may be able to find new ways of managing these difficulties which could improve people’s health and quality of life. We want to make sure that we research the things that matter most to older people; so the information from our survey will be used to direct future research.”

If you provide support for an older person with health or mobility problems, the researchers would value your views – by completing their survey. The survey can be accessed here: https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/research-priorities-survey-carers (This link includes more information about the survey to help you decide if you’d like to complete it.)