Discussing research processes with peers: Presenting our work on the link worker role at the Health Services Research UK conference

In July 2024, we ran a workshop at the Health Services Research UK conference in Oxford. It focused on the study we completed in early 2024 on the implementation of link workers into primary care in England. We were joined by 24 conference attendees. We focused the workshop on processes involved in conducting the study. We covered, in the workshop, three key areas – meaningful measurement, spending prolonged time in a setting for data collection, and strategies adopted after hearing difficult patient stories as part of data collection. 

Meaningful measurement

Stephanie highlighted the tensions of what to measure in an intervention like social prescribing that is shaped around the unique non-medical needs of an individual. We invited those present to consider what different stakeholders might want to know about the link worker role (as it is still a relatively new role in a number of primary care settings). Their responses are listed in the table below.

Stephanie talked about measures used in the project (on well-being and self-efficacy) and whether they captured benefits patients described in interviews from having engaged in social prescribing. These benefits included: 

• Having space and permission to think more clearly
• Offering hope  
• Feeling valued and not alone
• Creating social connections
• Changing family dynamics
• Re-establishing trust in statutory services

We then invited those present to discuss, in small groups, what meaningful measurement might look like for social prescribing. This is what those in the workshop identified:

Spending protracted time in settings to gather data

In this part of the workshop, Debra invited those attending to consider the pros and cons of an ethnographic approach to data collection. She outlined how for the study, researchers spent three weeks at different sites in England, collecting data around link workers; data collected included observations, interviews, and relevant documents. Debra outlined what might be some of the potential benefits of taking an ethnographic approach. She then asked attendees to identify potential drawbacks, which are listed in the following table.

Hearing difficult stories as part of research

Debra ended the workshop by reflecting on how, as part of the study, researchers would hear difficult stories from patients who were facing challenging life circumstances. She talked about one approach she used to cope with a particularly intense interview, whereby she wrote a poem to process the encounter. We invited those present to discuss some of the approaches they used to manage the impact of hearing difficult stories as part of data collection. They mentioned having a supportive research team with planned opportunities to debrief, reflect and share experiences. Others discussed building professional, psychological supervision into project bids for studies which might deal with potentially traumatic subjects. One group produced the following mind-map as part of its discussion.

Conclusions

Our study on the link worker role demonstrated the value of working in a research team with a wide range of expertise and experience of different methods. The team developed its own strategies not only to cross-check findings and analysis with other researchers, Patient-Public Involvement (PPI) members and co-applicants, but also to support each other. These strategies included holding regular discussion and analysis meetings, both in-person and online, and a weekly catch-up meeting of the research delivery team.

The study referred to in this blog was funded by a grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR130247). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care, or the authors’ host institution.