The ALLIANCE Frailty Matters research project review activities from 2020

The team have worked hard to co-design and co-deliver the combined coaching and educational programme.

Well, what a busy year for the ALLIANCE Frailty Matters research project.

This action research project is a collaboration between the ALLIANCE, UWS, NHS Ayrshire and Arran, the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) (this link will take you away from our website), the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland (QNIS) (this link will take you away from our website) with funding from the Burdett Trust (this link will take you away from our website) for nursing. The project aim is to support community nurses to enhance their leadership skills and confidence in identifying and managing frailty in the community.

In the first year, the project moved at pace to secure research ethics approval. Focus groups and 1:1 interviews with community nurses and nursing team leads informed the design of a coaching and education programme, delivered with support from two co-coaches with lived experience of frailty. The person centred coaching elements of the programme are supported by Audrey Birt and build on the ALLIANCE Academy’s Five Provocations.

The programme was delivered October 2019 – March 2020 through three face to face and two virtual coaching and educational sessions with the community nurses and the co-coaches. The experience and expertise shared by the co-coaches adds a rich dimension to the interactive dialogue and learning for participants and facilitators. These interactive sessions are supported by an educational online blog.

In response to COVID-19 we paused the project to enable the community nurses to focus on their clinical roles, in line with advice from national research bodies.  We adapted the sessions for online delivery via the Microsoft Teams platform. These recommenced at the end of October 2020 following approval from NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s Research and Development Team. Unfortunately, continuing system pressures limited the community nurses’ capacity to engage with the online sessions despite hearts and minds being willing. The information and resources added to the

Frailty Matters educational blog continued to be accessed regularly for self directed learning.

An important output from the project is the ‘Frailty Matters House.’ This was adapted, with permission, from Scotland’s House of Care – an established person centred framework for collaborative care and support planning for people with long term conditions.

• The foundation includes elements of person centred coaching and leadership, active listening, reflection and action planning to facilitate change and improvement
• The house is insulated by the ethos of Realistic Medicine (this link will take you away from our website)
• The ‘building blocks’ are based on what the community nurses and co-coaches consider are important to help people living with frailty to stay well

The Frailty Matters House has been refined through engagement in local, national and international events including an ALLIANCE member’s event. These provided rich feedback and contributed to the further development of the Frailty Matters House and programme.

The final phase of the research project is progressing including participant interviews and exploring the learning with the co-coaches. An initial paper has been submitted to the British Journal for Community Nursing.

The Frailty House is highly transferable across disciplines, care settings, sectors and countries.

Reports of other ALLIANCE programme activities during 2020 can be found in our News section.

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